Bad news: Declaration on water lacks clear program of action

ENVIRONMENT - IPS
Declaration on Water Lacks Clear Programme of Action
Marwaan Macan-Markar

KYOTO, Japan, Mar 23 (IPS) - A ministerial meeting tackling the world's water problems fell short of producing a clearly defined programme 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 recognising 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 programmes 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 organisations (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 Third World Water Forum 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 like 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 mobilised 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 75 billion to 180 billion U.S. dollars to achieve water security and provide sanitation for the world's poor. But NGOs at the Kyoto forum, which ran from Mar. 16-22, issued a statement to the ministerial meeting denouncing the efforts underway to privatise 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, decentralised actions''.

Under their commitment towards the U.N. 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.

''Most participants who talked with me said they were very happy about the Third World Water Forum,'' he told journalists at the forum's final press conference.

However, 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 deeds than 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 U.N. 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 realisation of other human rights,'' the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights stated late last year. ''State parties have to adopt effective measures to realise, without discrimination, the right to water.''