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Forum Calls For Local Government Role In Water Access
Mexico City (AFP) Mar 23, 2006 The Fourth World Water Forum ended here Wednesday with a declaration setting for the first time a key role for local governments to play in providing water to desperately parched communities. Decentralization of water supply management was a central theme of the forum, along with the need for transparency and more money to improve clean water access. Delegations from 140 countries signed the declaration underlining the "important role that legislators and local authorities have in various countries to develop sustained access to water and sewage services." Local authorities can play a "key role" in improving water distribution and eradicating waste to reach the UN Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water by 2015, the declaration said. The Forum's final declaration was released to coincide with the United Nations' World Water Day. Daniel Zimmer, executive director of the World Water Council, said the event's main achievement was the dialogue between local and national governments. The council was founded in 1996 by specialists and international organizations as a platform to raise awareness about water issues. For the first time, the Forum in Mexico -- which followed summits in Marrakesh in 1997, The Hague in 2000, and Kyoto in 2003 -- reserved a significant place for the role of local communities. A phrase calling for the "right to water" as a human right was not included in the final text. However, the phrase, supported by Europeans and Latin Americans who want the "right to water" principle enshrined in constitutions worldwide, was featured in two annexes. The France-based World Water Council, which cosponsored the Forum with the Mexican government, had sought to have the right to water recognized as a human right, much the same as the right to education. "The lack of water or its poor quality kills 10 times more people than all wars combined," Loic Fauchon, the head of the World Water Council, said in the Forum's ministerial session. "Let us declare the right to water, without ambiguity, as an essential element of human dignity," he argued. Zimmer said earlier that though the basic right language was not expected to make it to the final declaration, at least the WWC for the first time had thrown a spotlight on the issue, which could help prod the language into legislation and constitutions. "That it is a right does not mean it is free," Zimmer cautioned. "Everyone understands that you have to pay for water. And when it is not available, you pay dearly." Forum participants also used the event to call for more money to provide water to nearly two-thirds of the world population without access to drinking water or sewage systems. They called for 12 billion dollars a year, compared to the 3.5 billion dollars currently spent.
Source: Agence France-Presse Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links Fourth World Water Forum Water News - Science, Technology and Politics
Water-Saving Technology Plans Range From Simple To Surreal
Sydney (AFP) Mar 22, 2006Towing freshwater icebergs from the Antarctic, building a huge canal to link two seas, catching fog in the desert and half-flush toilets -- the search for ways to bring water to thirsty parts of the world is becoming increasingly ingenious and frantic. |
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