By Bidisha Banerjee
Random, horrifying statistics about global water and sanitation scarcity are easy to come by: 1.2 billion people have no access to safe drinking water; 2.4 billion lack adequate sanitation; 6000 children die every day from water-borne diseases. Water touches all the main themes of the sustainable development agenda: poverty alleviation, environment, private sector-led growth, participatory development, and good governance.
The water and sanitation initiative at the WSSD approached water issues from a holistic perspective, outlining several key action areas, setting targets, and specifying activities to meet these targets. After the WSSD, the BBC hailed the water and sanitation initiative as the "jewel in the summit's crown."
The water and sanitation target – to halve the number of people lacking access to safe drinking water and sanitation by 2015 – represents a significant expansion over the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) formulated by the UN in 2000, and serves as a useful goal for post-WSSD action. Some of the specific actions within this project are:
- developing integrated water resource management frameworks
- accelerating water productivity gains in irrigated agricultural systems to contribute to food security
- strengthening disaster-preparedness
- mobilizing financial resources
- buttressing institutional and technical capacities of developing countries
- protecting the quality of surface and groundwater as well as aquatic ecosystems.
The strong emphasis on partnership initiatives was one of the most encouraging outcomes of the WSSD and is at the core of the water and sanitation initiative. The United States estimates that its US$970 million "Water for the Poor Initiative" will leverage private resources to generate more than US$1.6 billion of water-related activities.
Meanwhile, the EU launched its EUR1.4 billion "Global Water for Life" initiative. This initiative promotes cooperative management of water resources for countries that share an international river basin.
In addition to these promising developments, the Third World Water Forum – widely hailed as the most important conference on water issues to date – will be held in Kyoto in March, and will build on the momentum generated at Johannesburg.