UNEP- ARGENTINA
Occupying the most southern strip of America lies the Argentina, a Federal Presidential Republic led by their current president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Despite the beautiful rivers of Paraguay and Uruguay, more many more, which flows through the 23 pronvinces, many regions of the country suffers from bad management of water distribution.
The constitution of Argentine Republic declares water to be a public good and a function of local, provincial governments. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights states that every human should have access to clean water. But many poorer regions of Argentina are not provided with reliable water sources into their households and even lack a supportive political pull to change this. Even in the suburbs of its capital of Buenos Aires, running water is not provided by the government. While some are capable of having running tab water, they are unable to afford the rising cost of it. Much of the financial side of the issue has to do with privatization, which has been put to experiment in the past few years with only undesirable results. Such as the case in the Tucuman province, where water bills were increased to up to 70% while its collection rate diminished to 10% by a multinational water provider, Vivendi. The company had claimed to be improving conditions of the infrastructure in the region. But in 1996, the public protested Vivendi Environment when manganese deposits in the water became so great that the tap water ran brown. In Córdoba, an attempt at relying on a multinational corporation was made with Suez, which again resulted in an utter failure and eventually the suspension of the company due to lack in fulfillment of contract and poor service. It has become clear that for profit companies have little interest in maximizing efficiency of water consumption if doing so threatens to minimize their profits. Often times, a discontinued use of service was the result for those who could not longer afford the high price. Private companies are abusing the low quality of sanitation required legally, which also goes hand-in-hand with the neglect of Argentina health problems. The companies are also discouraged from identifying potential low pollutants in the water by a lack of financial gain to them. If pollutants are identified there is nothing stopping the companies from misrepresenting the effects and impacts that could potentially occur.
