WATCH: Access to Clean Water for All?

It’s quite simple: without water, we would not exist. It is essential to all human and economic development. We can’t live without water.

Today, 780 million people (that’s about one in nine) lack access to clean water. More than twice that many, 2.5 billion people, don’t have access to a toilet. In fact, more people have a mobile phone than have a toilet. Just to put that into perspective, the number of people without access to clean water around the world is more than 2.5x the population of the United States.

The lack of access to clean water is a massive problem. The United Nations has classified the access to clean, safe water, and sanitation a fundamental human right. One of the fundamental issues is that water is unevenly distributed, and too much of it is wasted, polluted and unsustainably managed.

“Everyone has the right to clean and accessible water, adequate for the health and well-being of the individual and family, and no one shall be deprived of such access or quality of water due to individual economic circumstance.” – Peter Gleck

The documentary “Water Rising“, produced and directed by two independent Irish documentary makers, Aisling Crudden and Muireann de Barra, follows the lives of three people, and the city of El Alto during a period of massive social and political change in Bolivia – a place where chaos, poverty and hope meet on the fringes of society.

The film highlights one of the fundamental aspects to understanding the nature of water accessibility today: who owns the water? As part of the condition for a World Bank Loan, water services in Bolivia had to be privatised. This was devastating in El Alto. In a city where the majority of the population live on under $1 a day, this meant that access to clean, safe water became a luxury that many could simply not afford.

The struggle for water was the struggle for life. Most shocking? The people of El Alto lived directly next to one of the major water sanitation plants. They could see and hear the clean water they so desperately needed. Instead, they had to get water from a pipe leading out of the plant, water that was contaminated with dirt, pebbles, and petroleum. This made many people extremely ill.

The documentary follows the transition from a failed private water service back to a publicly controlled and more accountable one, and it was the Bolivian government who first took the case of making access to clean water a fundamental human right for all.

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