Commoditization and commercialization of water: Is it the new oil?

About 1.1 billion people in the developing nations presently do not have access to a minimal amount of clean water (UN Human Development Report, 2006). By 2025, if current global water consumption continues, more than 3.0 billion of the world's 7.9 billion people will be living in areas where water is scarce. The report advocates strongly “making water a human right—and meaning it.” This paper focuses on how water in the past decades has been made into a profitable commodity and widely commercialized and the foreseeable impact of such actions on the pricing, availability and use of this essential resource across the world. The paper draws upon the extensive data available to consider both the supply and demand sides of the equation. An empirical analysis of the data reveals that, if current trends of commoditization and commercialization of water continue, increasing numbers of vulnerable people in the developing world would not be able to access this basic human need. This, in turn, would result in an inevitable delay in achieving the health and development goals of many developing nations. The paper highlights, through examples, how economic, cultural and political factors that impact the distribution and use of water have further worsened the disparities between and within nations. Finally, the paper using a human rights framework provides proven strategies for developing and instituting policies that effectively balance the basic human need for water and the profit motive behind its commoditization and commercialization.