Civil society organisations (CSOs) at the Africa Social Forum recently held in Dakar, Senegal, have called on African States, including Ghana, to reject national policies and international treaties that promote the privatisation and commodification of natural resources, as well as water grabbing, including prepaid meters, automatic tariff adjustments and the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the European Union (EU) and African Caribbean Pacific (ACP) countries.

In a declaration after the summit, the CSOs also asked the countries to denounce the World Bank's 'doing business' rankings that are drafted uniquely to support speculation purposes and foster land and water grabbing, while completely neglecting social and environmental standards. The next meeting of the Forum will be held in Tunis, Tunisia.

The CSOs also want the countries to immediately implement the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) voluntary guidelines on land tenure and the management of natural resources, and grant the effective justifiability of the rights enshrined therein: “To fulfill the human right to water and sanitation that was recognised and made explicit by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly Resolution 69/2010; the adoption of constitutional and legislative regulatory frameworks which guarantee everyone the availability and accessibility of water and sanitation, as well as the effective justifiability of the right to water,” they stated.

The CSOs urged the States to recognise, respect and protect the collective customary rights regulating the access, security and governance of land tenure and water. They also pleaded with the countries to recognise, respect and protect the rights of vulnerable and marginalized groups, especially women and the youth, about their access, security and governance of land tenure and water.

The CSOs further called on the States and international governmental organisations (IGOs) “to explicitly endorse the promotion of human rights, including the human right to water and access to land, as part of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN Agenda post-2015.” The States and the IGOS are to refocus co-operation and partnership relationships on the right to development's imperatives; benefiting communities' empowerment rather than economic and geopolitical interests.

They are also to adopt an Additional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) of the United Nations that specifies the obligations of States with regard to the right to water and sanitation.

“We call on civil society, social movements, NGOs and trade unions from the Africa Social Forum to endorse this declaration and support its claims by all available means. We need to foster the solidarity of our struggles, including the struggle for our rights to access the essential resources required for life, we need to make civil society's voice heard in the negotiations towards the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN Agenda post-2015, in the application of international and regional guidelines on land tenure and natural resources, and the COP 2015 for the protection of the environment.”