Municipal Services Project Blog

Berliner Energietisch is organizing a referendum initiative to remunicipalize the electricity grid and create a public, democratic energy utility in Berlin, Germany. Its slogan “ecological-social-democratic” names the three key principles behind the campaign to buy back the city’s electricity grid from the current owner, a subsidiary of Swedish corporatized public energy company Vattenfall.

Almost a year has now passed since our book on water remunicipalisation was first released. It is exciting to give it a second life today, in Spanish, as well as through a short animation film. The remunicipalisation wave continues and it must serve to democratize water services.

There is a lot of talk about crisis these days. It can hide the reality of winners and losers from current global processes and the fact that having a healthy society is a matter of choice. EQUINET’s 2012 Regional Equity Watch shows how health inequalities have persisted despite economic growth, leaving millions without the basic food, water, shelter, employment and income to lead a healthy life. But emerging alternatives point to the possible.

Estamos sentadas en la gran sala de un convento católico en la Ciudad de México, el tipo de espacio donde muchos movimientos sociales latinoamericanos históricamente han buscado refugio durante las dictaduras. Hoy en día, no nos enfrentamos a los militares pero si las grandes multinacionales que quieren vender nuestra agua, utilizarla para cultivar soja o envenenarla con sus minas. Nos hemos reunido para la asamblea de la Red Vida, y estamos debatiendo estrategias políticas para construir sobre nuestros éxitos contra la privatización del agua.

Walking down the streets of Cape Town with hundreds of global health movement activists from over 90 countries, it all looked so familiar. Twelve years ago, we had come together in Bangladesh, and had marched down the streets of Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, giving rise to the People’s Health Movement. At our Third Assembly in July 2012, activists were full of purpose and resolve, at the same time as celebratory and forward-looking. Held in the somber backdrop of the global crisis, it served to consolidate the movement’s advances and to envision a different future for the countless people being consigned today to leading a life that is unfulfilling, unhealthy and lacking in meaningful opportunities for human development.