World Forum Seeks Solutions to Impending Water Crisis
FrontLines - April 2009
By Angela Rucker
Providing access to clean, safe water for the millions of people without it will not happen without significant cooperation among countries and considerable changes in the way the world manages
this limited resource.
Officials at the fifth World Water Forum, held in Istanbul, Turkey, over three days in late March, called on political leaders to take action now to address pressing water issues that are predicted
to slow economic growth, agriculture production, and human development, and increase tensions between water-poor and water-rich regions of the world in the coming decades.
“A lot of people think water is the next oil,” said USAID Acting Administrator Alonzo Fulgham, who led the U.S. delegation to the conference that attracted an estimated
25,000 participants. “Mobilizing the resources...is likely to be one of the greatest challenges we face.”
The annual estimated price tag to meet water and sanitation goals international experts agree are necessary: between $15 billion and $30 billion.
“We need to head off what is likely to be a major disaster that cuts across everything that we do at the Agency,” said Fulgham, naming agriculture, health, economic
growth, and biodiversity among several key sectors. “I think a key message… is that with the right leadership and the right commitment,
we can make progress.”
The forum is considered the world’s largest international event devoted to water and sanitation. Technical experts, activists, government
officials, and political leaders from around the globe attended days of seminars and meetings devoted to find workable solutions to help the 800 million to 1 billion people who lack access to safe drinking water and the 2.5 billion without access to adequate sanitation.
In a declaration at the end of the event, forum participants said: “The world is facing rapid and unprecedented global changes, including population growth, migration, urbanization, climate change, desertification, drought, degradation and land use, economic
and diet changes.”
Forum leaders called water a “basic human need” and set out a list of non-binding recommendations
for its members, including greater cooperation to ease disputes
over water; measures to address floods and water scarcity; better management of resources; and curbing pollution of rivers, lakes, and aquifers, according to press accounts.
Fulgham chaired the forum’s roundtable on finance—grappling
with how countries will pay for needed water reforms—and formally participated in several
other meetings, including those devoted to climate change and the right to water and sanitation.
As many as 60 technical advisors and others from the U.S. government attended the event, including experts from USAID bureaus for Global Health; Asia; the Middle East; and Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade (EGAT).
Ensuring financial support is among the most important water challenges the world will face, Fulgham said, naming NGOs, financial institutions, international
donors, and the private sector
as sources to tap. “We are going to have to mobilize resources from all sources and be creative about how we blend different
forms of financial support,”
he said.
This needs to happen in spite of the current worldwide economic meltdown, said EGAT Water Team Leader Jim Franckiewicz. Developing strategic plans, bankable
projects, and financing mechanisms
can take a year or more, USAID officials stressed to their global counterparts.
“These are three activities
that need to be underway,” Franckiewicz said. “All of these things take time. Our message was
there is plenty of work to be done and…there is no reason to delay.”
The U.S. government spent $1.5 billion on water projects in Iraq in 2007 and committed $900 million to water projects in the rest of the world. Some $590 million
of that money went to improve access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation in 50 countries. As a result, more than 2 million people have cleaner sources of drinking water and more than 1.5 million have improved sanitation.
Today, USAID is spending $300 million annually through the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act on water projects across the globe. Africa, in particular, has received a lot of attention of late, with the continent’s share of water projects growing from $25 million to $80 million to $125 million for this fiscal year.
At the forum, the Agency announced a public-private
partnership with Rotary International to implement sustainable
water supply, sanitation, and hygiene projects in three countries: the Dominican Republic, Ghana, and the Philippines. The partnership will jointly fund the activities, with an expected minimum of $2 million
per country.
In addition, the Agency
and the International Water Association signed an agreement to work together to increase access to clean drinking water and sanitation throughout the Middle East and Africa by strengthening water utilities and their regional associations. Focus is on access for the urban poor, water safety and quality management,
climate change, and addressing leadership gaps.
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