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Forum fails to address water
issues
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
KYOTO - A ministerial meeting tackling the
world's water problems fell short of producing a clearly
defined program of action in its final declaration,
which was released here in this central Japanese city on
Sunday.
Also missing in the final text seeking
to achieve water security was language recognizing the
right to water as a human right.
Furthermore,
the ministerial declaration omitted mention of the need
for a global mechanism to monitor the progress being
made to solve water-related problems, particularly the
lack of safe drinking water and adequate sanitation.
Both the human-rights aspect of access to water
and the need for a mechanism to monitor water programs
received mention during a week-long international
conference on water that preceded the two-day
ministerial meeting here.
During the Third World
Water Forum (TWWF), policymakers, water experts,
engineers, company executives, activists and
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) debated a range of
issues, from water and climate, water supply and
sanitation, waste water, water for agriculture, the
issue of impounding water through dams and potential
conflicts that could arise due to water.
As it
is, the declaration endorsed at the ministers' meeting,
which attracted representatives from over 100 countries,
identifies key areas where urgent work is necessary.
Among them are exploring new ways of financing water
projects, including private-sector participation.
The other significant themes in the declaration
are the need for community-based approaches in managing
water, the recognition that cooperation is a must among
countries that share rivers to avoid future conflicts
and that countries must improve the "efficiency of
agriculture water use".
Some themes at the TWWF
proved to be thornier than others, not least what
critics called the too-heavy focus on the role of the
private sector in access to a basic good such as water.
Indeed, these themes included the debate on how to
finance water projects in the developing world - both
for safe drinking water and for irrigation and
hydroelectric power - and the need to build large dams.
In the end, the declaration states that "all
sources of financing, both public and private, national
and international, must be mobilized and used in the
most effective and efficient way".
It adds that
it "takes note" the report of the World Panel on
Financing Water Infrastructure, which backs greater
private sector involvement in water services in the
developing world and calls on governments to reform laws
to ensure the water companies are guaranteed security.
According to a World Bank report released during
the Third World Water Forum, the developing world will
need annual investments in the water sector to rise from
US$75 billion to $180 billion to achieve water security
and provide sanitation for the world's poor.
But
NGOs at the Kyoto forum, which ran from March 16-22,
issued a statement to the ministerial meeting denouncing
the efforts under way to privatize water.
They
objected to the development model being given legitimacy
at the TWWF that stresses on "the commodification of
water and the renewed push for large-scale
infrastructure projects that undermine local,
participatory, decentralized actions".
Under
their commitment toward the United Nations Millennium
Development Goals, world leaders have pledged to achieve
two specific targets by 2015: to reduce by half the 1.1
billion people who have no access to safe water and the
2.4 billion people who have no access to proper
sanitation.
Currently, some 2.2 million people
in the developing world, a majority of them children,
are dying every year due to water-related diseases
arising out of improper sanitation.
Sunday's
ministerial meeting affirmed that governments are still
determined to meet the Millennium Development Goals. To
achieve them, "we will address water supply and
sanitation in urban and rural areas in ways suitable for
the respective local conditions and management
capacities", the final declaration from the Kyoto
meeting states.
Oda Hideaki, secretary general
of the TWWF, welcomes the stress on actions than
policies in the ministerial declaration. "The world's
poor need actions. This forum [the TWWF] is a platform
to take actions," he told a small group of journalists
during a breakfast meeting over the weekend.
For
William Cosgrove, vice president of the World Water
Council (WWC), an independent body that was a key player
in the TWWF, the ideas aired during the forum helped
reinforce the global need for deeds to confront the
emerging tide of water problems.
Some delegates
from Latin America and Europe expressed disappointment
with the final outcome of the ministerial meeting,
saying that the document's text needed to be more
specific and strengthened to achieve the goals aimed for
at the TWWF and to reflect the fact that it was time for
action not words.
On the eve of the ministerial
meeting, the global human-rights lobby Amnesty
International (AI) issued a statement calling on all the
government delegates to back the emerging trend for the
right to water to be seen as a human right.
According to AI, "The human right to water will
assist efforts to address issues of water scarcity,
climate change, water quality and the spread of
water-borne diseases and to ensure that the world's
water supplies are administered in a fait and
sustainable fashion."
In doing so, AI was adding
its voice to a recent message delivered by a UN body
justifying the right to water as a human right, which
marks a new turn in the global human-rights agenda.
"The human right to water is a prerequisite for
the realization of other human rights," the UN Committee
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights stated late last
year. "State parties have to adopt effective measures to
realize, without discrimination, the right to water."
(Inter Press Service)
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