Water And Sanitation For The Bolivian People

The city of Cochabamba, Bolivia put its water system up for auction in 1999. The company Aguas del Tunari promised to expand water services, in exchange the contract guaranteed the company a fifteen percent profit. The first people to question water privatization were local professionals and peasant farmers who rely on irrigation. Citizens began calling public meetings to speak their concerns. Sadly, the government ignored them and their concerns. With no disregard for the public voice, people began to protest. With that, in early 2000, the historic water wars began.

Our project will discuss the unsanitary water in Latin America, which makes life a struggle for the native people. We will cover the origin of the water and how it affects the people. The presentation will have an aspect covering the factors that lead to the unsanitary water conditions. Statistics on health rates of people in taking the water, such as death and illness, will also be shown throughout. Every member of the audience will be given a handout of an interview conducted by us with a representative from Charity: Water on the lack of water in Guatemala.

An innocent child begs her mother for food, a single tear running down her cheek. The fires of life that once filled the girl’s eyes slowly begin to fade. The mother embraces her child, tells her the pain will be gone within a few moments. As she holds her, she feels the warmth slip away; her little girl’s body becomes engulfed by empty coldness. So much could have been done to save that life, from local government support to foreign aid, yet not enough aid was given. And so, society is posed with the question of “How much aid should wealthy nations provide for developing countries?” This paper will look at the philosophy behind this question by analyzing two articles.

Governments and state agencies need to be more concerned in the obliteration of poverty through providing foreign aid. "As much as people think that America does its part in providing foreign aid, statistics from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development show that the U.S has been at the bottom of the list of industrialized countries as per proceeds that they give to foreign support." (Singer, 2009)

All the countries in South America are greatly affected by poverty to some extent. The countries that have the highest rates are Bolivia, Colombia and Venezuela. However, in recent years most South American countries have experienced economic growth. All of these countries are trying to reduce poverty, with varying degrees of effort and success. New infrastructures are being built and more houses are being provided.

The lack of access to sea would create an increase of transportation costs making it more difficult for Bolivia to export its raw materials and resources. Furthermore, the land lost to Chile was rich in many resources, nitrate in particular, that could have helped the economy of Bolivia grow. A study done by Dr. Richard Sicotte, who researches the economic history of Latin America for the University of Vermont, showed that the Bolivian government’s revenues would have been at least double their historical level had the Chileans not obtained the nitrate rich land. Taking it a step further, these government revenues that could have been generated with the exportation and taxation of nitrate, could have been implemented towards Bolivia’s infrastructure, education programs, payments of debt, and several other programs that create economic and social development in the country. On the other hand, it can be argued that even with the land that was taken, Bolivia still has a great quantity of natural resources, yet does not use them to its benefit, giving the country the fame of being a “beggar on a throne of gold.” However, as noted earlier, the mistrust in outside forces makes Bolivia hesitant to expand their trade and the lack of access to sea also makes it more

Prior to doing the readings for this week, I did not know very much at all about foreign developmental aid. I only ever figured that foreign developmental aid was money that we provided to developing nations to help soothe poverty. After reading these articles, however, I now know that the intended goal of developmental aid is to alleviate poverty in the long-term, rather than as a short-term response. I also saw developmental aid as purely humanitarian, and never paused to consider that consequences of such aid, nor the possibility of the aid failing.

Bolivia is one of South American’s poorest countries, with almost two-thirds of the population living in poverty. Suffering from inflation and a large foreign debt, structuralist measures were put in place, to help the country’s economy, but these failed to bring stability. In 1981 the World Bank and IMF program of the structural adjustment had also failed, causing a negative GDP growth for many years.

The relationship between political and economic structures, in the case of Bolivia, are inherently intertwined. Historic political leadership has resulted in economic demise for

In 1992, floods caused sewage treatment plants in Tajikistan to over load and spill over which contaminated a nearby river that happened to be it's main source for drinking water.The lack of water sanitation centers in Tajikistan intensified the need for emergency stock placing additional strain on external sources. Africa as well faces immense challenges with water sanitation for both rural and urban Africans to access clean water. In 2004 only 16 percent of the individuals in sub-Saharan Africa had access to clean drinking water.

As a recipient of foreign aid, Brazil in 2012 received $2.4 million (US) in international humanitarian aid. Also, during the period of 2003 to 2012, Brazil received $ 4.5 billion (US) in official development assistance (ODA). (1) As a donor nation, Brazil contributed $1.3million (US) in humanitarian assistance in 2013 and $54 million in that same category of international aid (US) in 2012. (1) Due to global austerity, international foreign aid is on a constant decline around the globe. Some estimates place Brazil’s 2015 projected, combined giving,

Due to these severe issues, wealthier more developed nations have made it their responsibility to eliminate some of these issues by donating and providing aid to them. But, many attempts have had a negative outcome due to the interest of their government. Although it is the responsibility of the developed countries to aid and help the global poor, due to the severe long term effect that poverty has had, the donators, would eventually impoverish themselves to sacrifice their luxury to meet such a moral

The matter of foreign aid is complicated. Through our own policies, the policies of international organizations, and assorted agreements with numerous countries, our role in foreign aid has continued to change over the decades to meet the growing needs of the developing and developed worlds. While we try to aid the developing world to the extent of our capabilities, there are several elements to consider – some of which in the past have often been neglected. When providing aid to countries in need, we fund programs through both Official Development Assistance, hereafter referred to as ODA, and through the financial support of private donors. We rely heavily on partnerships with non-governmental organizations, NGOs, to execute many of our funded programs in other countries, as well as our own agencies such as the Peace Corps. This brief will further explain the general reasoning for and operations of foreign aid, as well as provide you with some past practices of foreign aid which will serve as models of what to do, or in some instances, what not to do, in the future.

Many influential thinkers view foreign aid as one of the best tools for eradicating poverty. However, my aim is to prove this belief wrong by demonstrating that if the capital is given to the wrong types of government then it works to further perpetuate inequalities. Nations thrive only when they establish inclusive governments—ones that promote free markets that permit citizens to not only spend freely but also to invest to promote the flow of capital. On the other hand, governments that use authority to consolidate power in the hand of only a few, such as one in Mexico, may show some economic growth but at the cost of the well-being of the majority.

Politics have been important throughout history, but in the last century, government has changed a large amount. With the rise of the standard of living in first world nations, there has been a push to help bring everyone in the world up to a minimum standard. There have been many perspectives taken on the issue, and there are many articles for helping and against helping developing nations shown through political and historical lenses. A key question is how much aid wealthy nations should provide for developing nations, and how to provide it. Two articles considered this question. The first article deals with “The amount of government, while the second