Will Ecuador’s constituent assembly listen to its people on water and the environment?

At the end of November, a special government assembly sat for the first time to begin drafting the country's new constitution. The constitution was the anti-corruption election promise of president Rafael Correa last year, and there are now high hopes from many that an equitable management of the country's environmental resources might finally be enshrined in constitutional law. People's movements in Ecuador have long resisted pressure from international financial institutions to privatise their national resources and are keen that these resources are afforded absolute constitutional protection - which cannot be undone by future governments. So they have worked long and hard this year to put forward their vision of a more socially and environmentally fair Ecuador to the nation's assembly.

I am a natural resource management specialist with Progressio's partner organisation, CAMAREN. I work in a team to coordinate and support the National Water Resources Forum, a democratic space for organisations working for social justice, water consumption and irrigation, NGOs, universities, local government and government institutions to generate proposals for social and environmental change. Currently the forum is working on a final draft of the proposal which integrates water principles with social demands. For them, water is a national strategic resource for public use: 'it belongs to the pacha mama (mother earth) and to all Ecuadorian men and women'. They propose that water is a fundamental and inalienable human right: from which no person for any social, racial, religious, economic or political reason can be excluded. And they say water must be managed and administered by public and community entities: it cannot be privatised.

Similarly associations of small-scale farmers in Ecuador who are members of the NWRF, and the National Corporation of Agricultural and Associated Sectors (CONASA) have challenged the neoliberal model of resource management which they see as accentuating poverty. They expressed concern about the inequality of access to land and water resources, and the expansion of agriculture onto pristine or forest land. They've called for two new laws: the Agrarian Law and the Water Resources Law. The laws aim to ensure farming dignifies the rural population allowing everyone to live well; agriculture guarantees food security for the entire population; and agriculture is sustainable and sympathetic to the environment. Again they call for water to be a national service for public use, managed by a new Water For Life fund.

The Agrarian Board, comprising four peasant, indigenous and black people's federations of whom two are members of the NWRF, have called for a more equitable, intercultural, sovereign, sustainable and participatory country. They say the state should guarantee food sovereignty for the population and encourage what they call an 'agrarian revolution', which means fair redistribution of land, nationalisation of water, defence and management of biodiversity and traditional rights, and control of seeds by local peasants. A member of the Water Resources Forum from Pichincha Province, the Corporation for the Development of the Equinox Zone (CODEZEQ), comprising communities north of Quito working on water management, says it is important that 'privatisation of natural resources is eliminated, and that the state, which we all collectively form, takes control of these [resources]'. The NWRF has joined forces with other organisations, with the support of Progressio's partner organisation the Institute of Ecuadorian Studies (IEE), to produce a joint proposal on water and natural resources.

The NWRF is just one element of a very healthy picture of democratic involvement by Ecuador's people in their political process. The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) for example submitted a proposed new constitution to a group of elected members of the assembly, and are also working on proposals on water, land, biodiversity and constituent principles. And the Latin American Institute for Social Research (ILDIS) of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation has drawn together political parties, assembly candidates, social movements, citizens and representatives to debate the new constitution.

The left-leaning social and political groups concluded that the state should have the inalienable ownership of non-renewable natural resources. They say the current intensive, extractivist, economic model of development should be replaced by an environmentally sustainable model which prioritises the well-being of the population, guarantees equal access to natural resources, takes precautionary measures to protect the environment, and protects the rights of current and future generations to a healthy environment.

With such a wide range of involvement from grassroots organisations, it is important that they, like political organisations, find the common ground in their proposals. CODEZEQ says they don't want to see 'every organisation defending its rights separately and taking care of its own business, when instead we should all address the issues together'.  It is by lobbying collectively that their vision of a more socially equitable Ecuador has the best chance of being taken forward by the new assembly. Next year the new draft constitution will be put to a national referendum and we will  find out whether their hard work so far has paid off.

Silvina Gernaert Willmar is Progressio's development worker specialist on social management of natural resources, working with partner organisation CAMAREN (public and private bodies working for sustainable and fair management of Ecuador's renewable natural resources, including water, through training of technicians, community trainers and peasant farmers). Progressio is an international development agency working with people of all faiths and none to tackle poverty and injustice in developing countries.