Contents


Kyoto: 100 new commitments for water and sanitation

 

 

With the world looking at the war in Iraq, tens of thousands of participants gathered in Japan for the 3rd World Water Forum in March, expressing their concern over another potential source of conflict – water

 

 

Credit: J. Bendow/ICPDR
Different ways of sending out the message about sustainable water use

"The world is in a water crisis that will only grow more acute and devastating in coming years unless governments start giving higher priority to water in their development and investments plans”, says William Cosgrove, Vice President of the World Water Council. "Water is not a commercial product like any other, but rather a heritage which must be protected, defended, and treated as such”, agrees Koos Richelle, Director General for Development at the European Commission. At the Kyoto conference Europe Day, Richelle presented the EU Water Framework Directive, which is based on the principle of integrated river basin management to achieve a good status of all surface, ground- and coastal waters by 2015. The model character of the Danube River Basin in this regard was underlined in a presentation given in Kyoto by Joachim Bendow, executive secretary of the ICPDR.
Philippe Roch from the Swiss Agency for the Environment, Forests and Landscape, presented the new agreement reached under the auspices of UNEC for Europe on civil liability for damage caused by industrial accidents on transboundary waters. The proposal to draw up this binding instrument was first made in the wake of the accidents at a tailings dam at Baia Mare, Romania, in January 2000, when cyanides and heavy metals polluted almost 2,000km of rivers in the Danube Basin.
Progress on the EU Water Initiative "Water for Life”, a partnership to help countries achieve the water and sanitation targets agreed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, in Johannesburg, was also discussed in Kyoto. The Water Initiative will ensure investment in areas of greater need, such as Africa, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. The EU is already investing EUR 1.4 bn a year in water-related development aid and scientific co-operation. "The water crisis is a crisis of governance. This initiative promotes better water governance arrangements and transparency, building stronger partnerships between governments, civil society, and the private sector. Effective public services are a basis for sustainable water governance, and transboundary co-operation is an investment into peace and stability”, says Richelle.

Credit: J. Bendow/ICPDR
3rd World Water Forum logo floats in the Kamo River in Kyoto

But water for peace is exactly what the forum failed to deliver, believes Mikhail Gorbachev, former Soviet president and president of Green Cross International. Expressing his disappointment at the final outcome of the Ministerial Conference held in parallel to the Forum, Gorbachev said that "the Ministerial Declaration agreed in Kyoto is a weak document, with few identifiable new commitments or proposed mechanisms for translating already stated goals into actions”. Other environmental organisations were also critical of the Ministerial Declaration. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) says the ministers produced a "watered-down” document. WWF was even more critical, condemning governments for their failure to commit to actions to ensure adequate water supply and sanitation.
Organisers believe, however, that the Forum was fruitful and that it even exceeded the initial expectations. Cosgrove agrees that consensus couldn’t be reached on the two most delicate issues, large dams and privatisation of water facilities, but proudly points out the more than 100 new commitments towards bringing safe water and sanitation to the entire world.

 

Alexandru R. Savulescu