NGO alliance lashes out at WSSD action plan

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

An alliance of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) expressed disappointment over the outcome of the recently concluded World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa, saying it was too proindustry at the expense of the common people.

The alliance urged the government not to implement the agreements reached at the summit immediately.

"There is not a strong commitment to make development more poor people-oriented. (In fact) there are hidden agendas to transform public property into private or industrial property," said Longgena Ginting, coordinator of the Indonesian People's Forum (IPF).

Members of the IPF include the Indonesian Biodiversity Foundation (Kehati) led by Emil Salim, the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), the International NGOs Forum for Indonesian Development (INFID) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

The summit in South Africa produced implementation plans in numerous areas, including water, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity, and a consensus to help countries achieve sustainable development at the national level.

On the water issue, Longgena said there was no clause guaranteeing the commodity would remain a public asset to be protected from privatization.

"The consensus is only to halve the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and proper sanitation," he said.

Anung Karyadi, also of the IPF, said that with the WSSD consensus, water would likely be commercialized through partnerships with private investors.

"Partnership is no different from privatization. We are very afraid that the private sector will only think about drinking water, and forget about other utilizations such as irrigation," he said.

Anung warned the government not to blindly implement the consensus on water, which he said would legalize the privatization of the water sector.

"The government should craft a holistic package on the utilization of water, and not privatize the sector," he said.

The government has prepared a bill to liberalize and privatize the water sector. It has already begun the process of liberalizing the oil and gas, and power sectors.

In the energy sector, Longgena said, the consensus at the Johannesburg summit had not specified a timetable and the portion of renewable energy, which was one solution to reduce global warming.

"It was a backlash against the implementation plan agreed to at the Bali preparatory meeting last June, which required countries to use renewable energy for up to 15 percent of their needs by 2010," he said.

The consensus on energy would only give financial and technical support to countries for the reduction of the use of fossil fuels, but would not help increase the use of renewable energy sources, he said.