The Bolivian Water Wars - Essay Example

The Bolivian Water Wars According to (Cat, 3), the level of environmental degradation that is being caused byhuman activity is very high and happens at very detailed levels, such as the disintegration of plastic which then ends up in the food chain which involves humans. This means that there is a need for humans to consider the way they relate with the environment. As Jackson (78), says, gender plays a big role in maintaining a balance between nature and human activity. This is because women are mostly involved in the issues concerning nature and the environment. In poor countries for instance, women are mostly involved in activities such as fetching water, fetching fuel for domestic use and agriculture and therefore they understand the issues relating to the availability of water and other natural resources. This can be seen in the Bolivia water issues where women were the most affected by the rising water prices. The concept that gender has an effect on the way the society relates with the environment is predicated on the fact that gender roles and division of labour between the two genders determine how the society relates with the environment. Gender differences for instance determine how much each gender knows about the issues of environment and environment management. As Levy (pp. 8-12) says, in societies where there is no gender equality and women are left to do the lowly domestics tasks, they have the least knowledge about environment and this makes it harder for these women to be able to participate efficiently in conserving the environment. This can be seen clearly in developing and underdeveloped world where women are not involved in the environment programs; yet, they are the ones who interact with the environment every day as they go about their daily economic activities such as fetching water, fetching fuel, farming etc. Differences in gender also result in differences in the way the environment is used. When women, for instance, are not able to participate in particular modern socioeconomic activities, this affects the way they will use the environment for their economic gains. In this regard, gender inequalities may be seen as influencing the way the use of the environment in a negative way. At the same time, the gender differences determine who will be involved in the management of the environment. This is very important because of a number of issues. To begin with, when gender inequalities are high, women are not involved in the management of the environment and this makes it harder for the management of the environment to be done in a holistic way. In almost any society, women are always the majority and this means that they are instrumental in helping to manage the environment. Failing to involve them in the management of the environment only leads to an ineffective environment management. It is also clear that in societies where gender inequalities are higher, women are not only left out in the management of the environment but are also likely to involve in the negative interaction with the environment. This is because such women are also left out in participating in the modern socioeconomic activities, leaving them to only have access to harmful economic activities. Failing to involve women in the proper management of the economy has a double negative impact in that in such a situation the majority of the population is not involved and the part of the society which involved itself the most in interacting with the environment are not involved in managing it. Environmental degradation also seems to affect different genders in a different way. Women for instance are affected in a more negative way when the environment is harmed since they are the ones who need the resources from nature the most. This difference in the way environmental degradation affects the gender is also an indication that gender has an effect in the way the gender affects the way in which the society interacts with the environment. When for instance the water catchments are not preserved and the rivers run dry, women are affected more than men. This is also very evident in the poor countries where women spend most of their time looking for basic things such as fuel and water. In poorer countries where pipe water is not available, women can walk for kilometres a day looking for water and spend hours every day looking for water and fuel (firewood). This difference in the way the difference genders experience and interact with the environment is an indication of just how gender can and does affect the interaction with nature. In such cases, women are most likely to understand the need to preserve the environment than men would. However there is a need for a concerted action towards the preservation of the environment and this would require the women to be able to be give the equality in society so that they can participate in the management of the environment in a useful way. A closer look at environmental problems would indicate that poverty and social-economic issues do affect the way the environment is treated and the way the management of the environment is done. At the same time, the same issues also affect gender equality and gender differences. In poor countries for instance, gender inequalities are likely to be higher than in the more economically successful. This means that in these countries, gender is a basic issue with regard to the management of the environment as well as in determining the way in which the society will interact with nature. In this regard, closing the gaps between the genders is the main issue which must be looked at in order to make sure that the environment is managed in a proper way. The proper management of the environment can only be achieved through integrating both genders. Leaving out the women will only mean that there will not be a good way to manage the environment and for a society to relate with the nature in a way that will not hurt the environment. Any effort to have a productive and useful way to manage the environment and relate properly with nature can only be achieved through involving the society as a whole, and this cannot be achieved when there is gender differences. In this regard, it is necessary to empower women and to make sure that they are at a position where they can participate in the development of the society as well as the environment. The relation between the environment and the society is completely dependent on the structure of a society. This is why the interaction between the different societies around the world is different from each other. At the same time, the way gender is regarded any society also defines how the said society will be structured. Gender relations determine the format and the nature of a society and this in turn affects the way the said society will be able to relate with the environment and nature around it. Gender differences determine which opportunities a specific gender in a society will be able to access and which it cannot be able to access. This then defines the activities which the gender will involve itself in and in turn how they will interact with the environment. As a result, gender and gender relations in any society are a major factor in determining how this society will be able to interact with the environment. In societies where women are empowered, they are not likely to participate in the economic activities which are likely to harm the environment but are actually likely to be involved in the activities which are related to managing the environment and this would then mean that they would be able to enable a better interaction with the environment. Question 2 Bolivia’s water wars are an indication of how natural resources cane lead to many issues which may affect the society. In Bolivia, and especially in Cochabamba, it became very apparent that even a very affordable and cheap natural resource such as water can be made to be expensive and unaffordable when not well managed (Shultz, 9-42). To understand how this could happen, it is necessary to look at the history of Bolivia’s water wars which almost led to civil disorder this poor South American nation. To begin with it is necessary to point out that Bolivia is South America’s poorest nation according to IMF index. It is also one of the poorest nations on the face of earth. A poor nation like Bolivia depends too much on grants and loans from IMF and World Bank. Unfortunately, these loans do not come without strings attached. In poor countries like Bolivia, the government is required to make policy changes in order to quality for grants. These policy changes are placed in order to guarantee that the grants given to the government for development will be used for the reason they were given. However, this does not always help. In the case for Bolivia, these policy changes were many and numerous and the government had to satisfy the IMF and the World Bank in order for the country to qualify for the grants. In the list of policy changes that Bolivia was supposed to implement was the privatisation of public enterprises. Water fell under this and the water industry was to be privatized and the contract given to an international firm. The promise was that privatisation would lead to efficient delivery of services and reduced costs. This however did not happen but in deed, the opposite happened. Within a few weeks after the privatisation of the water supply in Bolivia, water price rose by up to 300%. Nor did the quality of water supplied to the residents improve. In fact the quality of the water got worse while the water bill went up. Water has been known to be one of the cheapest and affordable commodities in the world, only contributing to a very insignificant part of household expenditure for most people, even in cities where the delivery of the water depends on an expensive and supplicated system. This was not the case in Bolivia where the rising water prices ended up making the residents to find themselves in a situation where could spend up to half their income on water (Public Citizen, 1-3). This unbelievable increase in water prices was spiked by the privatisation of the water industry and the contracting of a for-profit firm to manage the water supply. In the meantime, water was not the only commodity whose prices were increasing after the privatizations in Bolivia. In fact, most formerly public enterprises in Bolivia had been privatised and the quality of service did not seem to match the increase the cost of delivery. In the mean time, the IMF and the World Bank continued to pressure the Bolivian government to continue with the privatization process, citing that the lack of positive change was caused by the fact that the government was not willing to implement the privatization process as fast as it should. During the Bolivian water wars, the government was seen as being reluctant to negotiate with the leaders of the protests due to pressure from the IMF and the World Bank. These two organisations continued to pressure the government to continue with the process of privatising the remaining public enterprises and give contracts to the international firms usually from the developed world. The rationale that these privatisations would lead to better services was not justified by the end results in the already privatised enterprises such as water supply. Water is a basic need and must be treated as such. The fact that water in Bolivia had increased in price to the point of costing a family half of its income is such a big violation of human rights. The Bolivia’s Water wars acted as a foundation for water and environmentalist activist to launch a global effort for the conservation of water and the environment (Shultz, para 5) There are other issues which come up in the Bolivia’s water wars. This is the fact that the poorer are always the most affected whenever there is war for natural resources. This is however something that is seems in many countries. The poor people in society seem to always pay the highest price whenever there are such wars. In poor countries, water access in cities like Cochabamba is divided between the poor and the rich. Poor residential areas barely ever get piped water and this means that they have to depend on water vendors to access water. This difference means that the poor people are more likely to get low quality water and at higher costs. This is because piped water is cheaper and cleaner and easily accessible unlike the water supplied to the uses by vendors. The Bolivia’s water wars definitely had a political streak to it. As indicated, the government was under pressure from the funding organisations to privatize the public enterprises including water access and this had a fundamental impact on the way the people in Bolivia would be able to access the water. There are issues which come up in the situation which lead to a number of questions with regard to how organisations such as IMF and World Bank operate. The first issue is the fact that these two organisations continued to pressure the Bolivian government to continue with the privatization even in cases where it was evident that privatization was not leading to the betterment of the service delivery or the reduction of cost of living. Apart from that, it was also evident that there was a hidden agenda in the whole privatisation issue because they had already decided that it would not subsidise the water after privatization. The reason why this clause was included in the memorandum becomes a question of interest and also an indication that the government was not willing to help the people. The whole issue also leads to a question as to why the government was unwilling to listen to the people even when it was very clear that the people had a serious issue which needed to be sorted out. It doest not take one to be highly intelligent to know that when a commodity as basic as water costs a family half its income, something is wrong. In this regard, it can be said that adamant refusal of the government to not listen to people at this time is an indication that the whole issue was a political issue. There are conspiracy theories which implicate international organizations such as IMF and the World Bank as tools used by the western world for neo-colonialism. The Bolivian water wars may be one example which may be used to raise questions as to the honesty of these organisations and their real motives. The Bolivian case was one of the many examples of what is happening in developing and underdeveloped countries where international aid is seen to cause more harm than bring more success for the recipient nations. This case also indicates just how the politicization of natural resources can lead to such dire issues and how this can be a source for civil instability in poor countries. The case indicates that international aid does not necessarily lead to better lives for the citizens of the recipient country and that this aid can be politicised in a way that will lead to the lives of people being degraded. Every government should find a way to deliver basic services to its citizens without interfering from international politics. Works Cited: Cat, Cato. How the oceans can clean themselves - Boyan Slat at TEDxDelft. NA. 20 November 2013 . Jackson, Cecile. "Doing what comes naturally? Women and environment in development", World Development, vol. 21, No. 12,. London: Pergamon Press., 1993. Levy, Caren. ""Gender and the environment: the challenge of cross-cutting issues in development policy and planning",." Environment and Urbanization, vol. 4 (1) (1992): pp. 8-12. Luis, Terhorst., Gomez, Sanchez and Philipp. "Cochabamba, Bolivia: Public-Collective Partnership After The Water War: And After The Water War… What?" Reclaiming Public Water (2004): pp. 121-127. "Public Citizen. ."Water Privatization Case Study: Cochabamba, Bolivia 2010: pp 1-3. Shultz, Jim. Jim Shultz on "Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia’s Challenge to Globalization". 19 April 2010. 20 November 2013 . —. "The Cochabamba Water Revolt and Its Aftermath." (n.d.): pp. 9-42. Read More