Zaragoza 2008

The international expo on water and sustainable development took place in Spain this summer.

After 93 days (!) of meetings and deliberations by over 2,000 experts, the Zaragoza Charter emerged.

The Charter -- with a 17-point preamble and 25 general principles -- is a combination of useless ("access to drinking water and sanitation is a human right"), scary (a "World Water Agency must be set up"), ideological ("management of public water and sanitation services be under the control of public authorities"), and weak (little mention of using price to constrain demand).

Reminds me of the quip [with apologies to camels!] that "a camel is a horse designed by committee."

Bottom Line: File this with the Millennium Development Goals -- under "good intentioned, but useless."

hattip to H-Net Water