Media Centre & Events

MEDIA CENTRE & EVENTS

In his opening remarks at a high-level roundtable panel here today, Sir Richard Jolly, Chair of the Geneva-based WSSCC said: "It's time for a change. Sanitation is not a dirty word! " Citing the outcome of the first in a series of roundtables and debates organized by the WSSCC as contributions to the Johannnesburg Summit, Sir Richard urged everyone to "end the apathy and inaction and to solve the global human settlement problem which threatens the well-being and security for rich and poor countries alike." "Environmental sanitation, hygiene promotion and safe water supplies are vital for protecting the environment, improving health and alleviating poverty," he said. "Disease, drudgery, loss of human dignity and millions of deaths every year are directly attributable to the lack of these basic services. Often, the poor are desperate to act, but often powerless. It is unthinkable that the world stands by as 6,000 die every day of preventable diseases whose causes are well known and easily remedied. These killers - water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea - constitute a world-wide "silent emergency."

Alarmed by the rapidly rising populations living in urban areas, particularly in developing countries, the Executive Director of UN-Habitat, Mrs. Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka pointed out that, in many cities and towns in the South, between 50 - 70 % of the population lives in slums and squatter settlements without adequate shelter and basic services. In fact, many of the poor end up paying up to twenty times more than the rich for water and it is the women and children who suffer the most. "What makes this worse is that in many of these cities up to 50 % of the water is being wasted and is unaccounted for. The situation is totally unsustainable and unacceptable," said Mrs. Tibaijuka. "For this reason UN-Habitat prioritizes water and sanitation policies in human settlements. This includes making sure that access to safe water and adequate sanitation are key indicators for monitoring the UN Millennium Declaration goal of improving the living conditions of 100 million slum dwellers. UN-Habitat's extensive experience in slum-upgrading shows that it is possible to improve the situation by a combined strategy that includes good urban governance and the necessary political and social resolve," she said. "Without safe water and adequate sanitation, there can be no sustainable human settlements, and without sustainable settlements there can be no sustainable development," she warned.

Mrs. Margaret Catley-Carlson, Chair of the Global Water Partnership and facilitator of the Bonn Conference said: According to the "5 Bonn keys to sustainable development": "The first key is to meet the water security needs of the poor - for livelihoods, health and welfare, production and food security and reducing vulnerability to disasters. Pro-poor water policies focus on listening to the poor about their priority water security needs. It is time now to build on the national and international commitment on drinking water with the determination also to halve the number of those who do not have access to sanitation."

The Declaration signed by 60 Ministers who attended the International Conference on Freshwater in Bonn, Germany (3-7 December 2001) could not have said it more clearly: "We express our deep concern that at the beginning of the 21st century 1.2 billion people live a life in poverty without access to safe drinking water, and that almost 2.4 billion have no access to proper sanitation. Safe and sufficient water and sanitation are basic human needs. The worldwide struggle to alleviate poverty must bring safe and decent living conditions to those who are deprived of these basic requirements."

WASH is designed to attack the insidious problems that prevent many countries from providing citizens with these basic services. It builds on the Council's successful experiences with its Vision 21 initiative, introduced during The Hague Second World Water Forum in 2000. The campaign aims to raise public awareness of the need for sanitation, hygiene and safe water, gain the commitment of political, social and opinion leaders around the world, and, ultimately, bring about the structural and behavioural changes that will provide a permanent solution to this preventable international crisis.

A people-centred approach is best. Establishing and maintaining a nation's water supply has traditionally been a top-down undertaking, with systems imposed on the populace by governmental and professional sectors. Sanitation is often an afterthought, a poor relation of the water programme, and its role in protecting water quality is often misunderstood or ignored. WSSCC's Vision 21 exercise proved that a people-centred approach is more effective, efficient, and less costly than a top-down approach. Local people often know best where to locate water pumps, where waste outlets should be located, how best to build self-financing systems and - most important - what steps need to be taken to educate their community in hygienic living.

This second roundtable debate during the CSD PrepCom II in New York is meant to step up the pressure and raise the level of debate in the run-up to the World Summit for Sustainable Development to be held in Johannesburg, from 26 August to 6 September 2002.

Moderated by Sir Richard Jolly, the roundtable panelists included:

• Mrs. Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, Executive Director, United Nations Human Settlements Programme
• H.E. Mr. Christian Olver, Director-General, Department of Environment and Tourism, South Africa
• H.E. Mrs. Maria Mutagamba E. Lubega, Minister of State for Water, Uganda
• H.E. Mr. Rashid Alimov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative of Tajikistan to the United Nations
• Mrs. Margaret Catley-Carlson, Chair, Global Water Partnership, Stockholm and Facilitator of the Bonn Freshwater Conference
• Mrs. Joanne DiSano, Director, Division for Sustainable Development, United Nations, Department for Economic and Social Affairs
• Mr. Victor Krishna-Kanu, Director, African Institute of Sathya Sai Education, Zambia
  

• A target and local specific plan of action to reduce the number of those who do not have the effective and hygienic sanitation to half the present proportion by 2015 and to ensure that all people have these services by 2025, similar to the targets established for water supply in the UN Millennium Declaration of 2000.
• Clear government responsibility and political will to ensure that integrated approaches to sanitation and hygiene improvement are mainstreamed into government sector policies and programmes and championed by a single responsible line Ministry. Improvements to water supply infrastructure alone are inadequate to meet the goal of achieving sustainable development and improving health.
• Ordinary people at the centre with effective, responsible and democratic local government, enabling communities themselves to plan, direct their own sector policies and mobilize their energy and creativity to be part of the solution.
• Employ participatory, gender-sensitive approaches to develop sector policies and give special attention to women and girls particularly in hygiene education and school sanitation.
• Partnerships involving all institutions - public and private - through appropriate policy and legislative mechanisms that provide for clearly defined mandates, responsibilities, incentives, pricing mechanisms and enforcement.
• Restructured sector investments. Maximum benefits can be achieved by re-allocating a higher proportion of funds to affordable and appropriate projects in rural and low-income urban areas, where needs are greatest.
• A society informed and aware of better water and hygiene practices through advocacy, training and capacity building in partnership with media, civic and private sector organizations and using traditional communication channels where applicable.
  

Participants of the first WSSCC high-level roundtable debate in Bonn included:

H.E. Mr. Ronnie Kasrils, Minister for Water and Forestry, South Africa, H.E. Mr. Michael Meacher, Minister for the Environment, United Kingdom, H.E. Mr. Macky Sall, Minister for Mines, Energy and Hydrology, Senegal, Mr. Nitin Desai, Secretary-General, World Summit for Sustainable Development, United Nations, New York, Dr. Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director, UNEP, Nairobi, Ms. Margaret Catley-Carlson, Chair, GWP, Sir Richard Jolly, Chair, WSSCC and Mr. Gerard Payen, CEO of ONDEO, Paris

***

(For more information, please contact: Ms. Eirah Gorre-Dale, WSSCC; or in New York c/o UNOPS - ENVP, Tel +1(212) 457-1862, Cellphone +1(914) 309-5491Fax:+1(212) 457-4044; E-mail: EirahGD@unops.org
In Geneva, Mr. Darren Saywell, WSSCC Secretariat, Tel.+ (41 22) 791 4535; E-mail: saywelld@who.int)

The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council Secretariat is located c/o WHO, CH-1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland. Tel.+(41 22) 791 3517; Fax+(41 22) 791 4847; Website: http://www.wsscc.org

UN-HABITAT is located in Nairobi, Kenya, Tel.+(2542) 62 3919. Fax.+(2542) 62 4265. E-mail: habitat@un.org Website: http://www.unhabitat.org