Remarks at the High Level Segment of CSD-12

At the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, governments called for the CSD to reform. The CSD has responded with more focus and emphasis on action. Thanks to your leadership, Mr. Chairman, CSD 12 has successfully given us a better understanding of the state of implementation on water, sanitation, and human settlements and a clearer picture of both obstacles and opportunities for implementation.

The United States is helping developing countries committed to growth and equitable development through the creation of an enabling environment characterized by good governance, rule of law, transparency, secure property rights, absence of corruption, and competitive markets. The United States supports the approach agreed to in the Monterrey Consensus that each country bears the primary responsibility for its own economic and social development.

Recognizing the importance of sustainable economic growth to poverty reduction, and the catalytic role foreign assistance can play when developing countries have the right policies in place, the U.S. has gone beyond its traditional assistance programs by enacting the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) Act. This law created the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) to implement the MCA, and provided $1 billion for FY 2004. The Bush Administration has requested $2.5 billion for FY 2005 and aims to scale the MCA up to $5 billion annually beginning in FY 2006. This represents the most significant increase in development assistance since the early 1960s

The MCA builds on the lessons learned from 50 years of development experience: domestic policies that invest in people and promote political and economic freedom are essential for economic growth; country ownership matters; measurable and tangible results matter; and, people matter. Where developing countries are forthrightly addressing the challenges to their own economic growth, governing justly and investing in themselves, the United States is proud to be a partner in development.

At the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the U.S. launched more than twenty partnerships and initiatives promote action, including four initiatives to catalyze international efforts to achieve the water-related goals endorsed in the Millennium Declaration and to implement the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation. For example, we launched the “Water for the Poor” initiative, a $970 million, three-year program focused on drinking water and sanitation, watershed management and increasing water productivity. USAID obligated $579 million under this initiative in Fiscal Year 2003. We estimate that U.S. efforts, from activities supported through this initiative as well as activities begun before WSSD, improved access to water and sanitation globally for over 19 million people in Fiscal Year 2003. There are nearly 100 activities throughout the world being implemented under this initiative.

“White Water to Blue Water” is an integrated coastal watershed and ecosystems based management initiative in the Wider Caribbean. At its conference in Miami last month, White Water to Blue Water sparked the creation of more than 70 new partnerships focused on these issues.

The “Safe Water System” is an initiative focused on increasing water quality through point-of-use treatment, safe storage and hygiene education. It has launched programs in over 20 countries to develop distribution networks and provide education and social marketing to create markets for technologies to disinfect and store water at the household level. Experience shows that once demand is created, the market grows and product suppliers can be self-sustaining.

The U.S. is committed to addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic. President Bush’s “Emergency Plan for AIDS” is the largest commitment ever by a single nation toward an international health initiative – a five-year, $15 billion multifaceted approach to combating this disease in the world’s most affected nations.

The United States is committed to capacity building, partnerships, innovative financing mechanisms, and working country-by-country to integrate water and sanitation into broader development plans and strategies. We hope that we can use our discussions here to explore ways of building on the momentum that has been generated at CSD 12 so that we might indeed embark upon an “era of implementation.” Thank you.