Experts want govts to make water top priority
Friday, August 3, 2007
WATER experts and programme specialists of international agencies who met here this month to plan the first Asia Pacific Water Summit (APWS) to be held in Japan in December, want water to be put in the top bracket of development priorities by governments in the region.
The Asia Pacific Water Forum (APWF), an independent, non-profit, non-political network, which was officially launched in September last year at the headquarters of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila, aims to mobilise governments, international donors and developments agencies and civil society groups to help achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target 10 of halving the number of people without access to clean water and improved sanitation by 2015. "What we think is by coming together we can become a much more powerful force," says Ravi Narayanan, former chief executive of UK-based Water Aid and Vice President of APWF.
"The summit (in December) will actually use our collective clout to try and persuade the heads of governments to give water the priority we think it needs in this region. So by using our own individual and collective energies, we can get them together in one place and tell them that progress is possible, that we have to work together that we can generate the political will," he added.
The Governing Council meeting of the APWF brought together in Singapore a wide array of water and sanitation experts and development planners from the region and international agencies like Unesco, UNHabitat, Unescap, Unicef, UNDP and the FAO, as well as the ADB and civil society organisations working in the field.
Reports commissioned by the above agencies last year gave a variety of facts and figures to show why water and sanitation should be at the top of the development agenda of the region.
A WHO-Unicef report indicated that 655 million people are still without safe drinking water and 1.9 billion without access to basic sanitation in the region.
The Asia-Pacific region accounted for 80 per cent of the world's total deaths due to water-related disasters between 2001-2005, according to the international disasters database.
A report commissioned by ADB last year — 'Asia Water Watch 2015' — estimated that US$8 billion a year needs to be invested on water and sanitation in the region in the coming decade to achieve the MDG 10 targets by 2015.
The Asia Pacific Water Forum (APWF), an independent, non-profit, non-political network, which was officially launched in September last year at the headquarters of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila, aims to mobilise governments, international donors and developments agencies and civil society groups to help achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target 10 of halving the number of people without access to clean water and improved sanitation by 2015. "What we think is by coming together we can become a much more powerful force," says Ravi Narayanan, former chief executive of UK-based Water Aid and Vice President of APWF.
"The summit (in December) will actually use our collective clout to try and persuade the heads of governments to give water the priority we think it needs in this region. So by using our own individual and collective energies, we can get them together in one place and tell them that progress is possible, that we have to work together that we can generate the political will," he added.
The Governing Council meeting of the APWF brought together in Singapore a wide array of water and sanitation experts and development planners from the region and international agencies like Unesco, UNHabitat, Unescap, Unicef, UNDP and the FAO, as well as the ADB and civil society organisations working in the field.
Reports commissioned by the above agencies last year gave a variety of facts and figures to show why water and sanitation should be at the top of the development agenda of the region.
A WHO-Unicef report indicated that 655 million people are still without safe drinking water and 1.9 billion without access to basic sanitation in the region.
The Asia-Pacific region accounted for 80 per cent of the world's total deaths due to water-related disasters between 2001-2005, according to the international disasters database.
A report commissioned by ADB last year — 'Asia Water Watch 2015' — estimated that US$8 billion a year needs to be invested on water and sanitation in the region in the coming decade to achieve the MDG 10 targets by 2015.
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