Commission on Sustainable Development                      

Twelfth Session                                            

16^th & 17^th Meetings (AM & PM)

safe water, sanitation fundamental for poverty reduction,

commission on sustainable development told

Experts Address Huge Costs from Water-Related Disease,

Need to Empower Women and Children, Urbanization of Poverty

The United Nations body set up to promote sustainable development in poor countries concluded today its in-depth look at the interrelated role water, sanitation and adequate housing play in human development, with experts focusing on eradicating poverty not through charity, but empowering the poor through their own actions, promoting women’s participation and tapping the tremendous potential of children.

The Commission on Sustainable Development held its final interactive dialogue today on “cross-cutting” issues affecting the achievement of targets on water, sanitation and human settlements, set for those sectors at the Millennium Summit and the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development.  Along with the critical need to stamp out poverty, participants also cited reducing unsustainable consumption and production, protecting and managing natural resources, African and other regional initiatives, gender equality and education.

Margaret Catley-Carlson, Chair of the Global Water Partnership, gave three principle reasons why access to water was so critical to poverty eradication.  One was “the law of how things work”, since the poor always suffered most when public services, sewage and water-treatment systems failed.  Another reason was the “livelihoods issue”.  There was a need to increase the efficiency of rural water harvesting and treatment systems -- to boost water sources for agricultural use and hygiene purposes –- in order to benefit the poor.

The cost of poor health was the final reason, she said.  India spent perhaps $60 billion annually treating water-related illnesses.  And for Africa, there was a staggering estimate that women and girls spent 40 billion hours of each year seeking water.  Moreover, if mothers could not get water, then girls were pulled out of school to do the job.  That perpetuated poverty, as well as poor health, she said.  It also eliminated the potential for the poor to save.  Without that, they could never rise out of poverty.

Sanitation and hygiene were fundamental for health and poverty reduction and, above all, human dignity, said Sir Richard Jolly, Professor in the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, United Kingdom.  He said some people thought sanitation was a dirty word, and reminded the Commission that international targets for safe water had been set in 2000 at the Millennium Summit, “but it took two years, and the Johannesburg World Summit...before everyone said, ‘Oops, we better do something about sanitation as well’”.

At any one time, nearly half the world’s poor were sick because of poor sanitation, he said.  It was necessary for action to begin at local rural and urban levels.  Women and children had the knowledge and opportunity to take the lead, but they needed to be given the chance to be agents of change.  “We don’t need to just think of them, we need to listen to them”, he added.  Women and children had the capacity, and they should be involved in designing plans and projects, particularly at schools and informal work centres, so they could take those lessons back to their homes.

Stressing the vital need to get cities and local authorities more involved in the implementation of the Johannesburg and Millennium goals, Pietro Garau, Co-Chair Millennium Development Goal Task Force on Slum Dwellers, said that the world’s urban population -– estimated at 3 billion in 2003 -- was expected to rise to 5 billion by 2030.  Further, urban areas in less developed regions would absorb almost all the world’s population growth between now and 2030.  Faced with those facts, why was the international community still reluctant to take on urban issues, particularly the urbanization of poverty? he asked.

Efforts were, in fact, being made by several cities and countries to grant secure tenure to slum dwellers, which was directly related to better health and environments, and to an improved capacity to enter the formal employment sector, he continued.  Nothing was so urgent as improving slum dwellers’ lives, and recognizing that the process turned many of them from invisible people into citizens.

At the Commission’s afternoon meeting, Chairman Børge Brende, of Norway, presented the first part of his summary of the session’s initial review of the thematic issues, which covers the main findings, including constraints and obstacles, highlighted during the plenary and parallel meetings and panel discussions held over the past two weeks.

It also details the meetings with the regional commissions and provides highlights of the Partnership Fair and Learning Centre, which were among the side events held this week.  Introducing the summary, he said the Commission’s 2004 session had been more interactive and better attended than ever before, and had, he believed, contributed to new ways of working at the United Nations.

Also speaking in today’s discussions were the representatives of Switzerland, Kenya, Uganda, Kazakhstan, Australia, Norway, Ireland (on behalf of the European Union), Canada, Fiji, Senegal, South Africa, Iran, United States, France, Niger, Tunisia, India, Qatar, Mexico, Egypt, Russian Federation, Japan, and Argentina.

A representative of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) also spoke.

Major groups taking part in today’s discussions included trade unions, science and technology, business, farmers, indigenous peoples and youth.

In addition, a representative of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) made a statement.

The Commission will meet again at 10 a.m. Wednesday, 28 April, for its high-level segment on water, sanitation and human settlements.

Background

The Commission on Sustainable Development met today to consider the links between water, sanitation and human settlements, its themes for the 2004-2005 session, focusing on, among other things, the role of poverty eradication and other cross-cutting issues.  [For background, see Press Release ENV/DEV/762 of 13 April 2004.]

Experts Introduction

MARGARET CATLEY-CARLSON, Chair, Global Water Partnership, Canada, said there were three principle reasons why access to water was essential to poverty eradication.  The first was “the law of how things work”.  It was always the poor who suffered most when things such as sewage and water treatment systems didn’t work.  While middle-class and upper-class communities could move quickly to action when public service infrastructure collapsed, most often the poor could not.  They didn’t have the networks and they didn’t have the time.  In the context of poverty eradication, she said that the mid-term international water management targets were perhaps more important than any of the others.

The “livelihoods issue” was another principle, she continued.  That was to say that there was a need to extend and maintain the efficiency of rural water harvesting and treatment systems -- primarily to boost water sources for agricultural use, but for hygiene purposes as well –- in order to benefit the poor.  The cost of poor health was the final principle.  “Access to safe water meant access to better health”, she said.  By example, she said that in India, it had been estimated that some $60 billion was spent each year dealing with water-related illness and disease.  There was a staggering estimate that in Africa, perhaps 40 billion hours of women and girls’ time was spent each year seeking water.  She added that if mothers could not get water, then girls would be taken out of school.  That perpetuated poverty and perpetuated poor health.  It also eliminated the potential for the poor to save and without that potential they could never rise out of poverty.

Sir RICHARD JOLLY, Professor, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, United Kingdom, said some people thought sanitation was a dirty word.  He reminded the Commission that international targets for safe water had been set at the Millennium Summit, “but had taken two years, and the Johannesburg World Summit for Sustainable Development, before everyone said, ‘Oops, we better do something about sanitation as well’”.  Indeed, it had been clearly shown that lack of sanitation undercut many of the benefits that could be gained from ensuring safe and clean water.  Sanitation and hygiene were fundamental for health and poverty reduction and, above all, human dignity, he added.

At any one time nearly half the world’s poor were sick because of poor sanitation, he said.  It was necessary to ensure that action started at local rural and urban levels.  And, while there was a place for big, expensive, top-down schemes, in order to reach urban slums and rural poverty stricken areas local-level initiatives were critical.  He drew attention to a local-level, community-wide programme under way in Bangladesh, where neighbours worked with each other to meet the specific goals and water resource needs in the place where they lived.  So, it was clear that there were people outside traditional institutions working for change.  “We just need to find out where they were and to learn from them”, he said.

Women and children had the knowledge and opportunity to take the lead, but they needed to be given the chance to be agents of change, he continued.  “We don’t need to just think of them, we need to listen to them”, he added.  Women and children had that capacity, and they needed to be involved in the inception and design of plans and projects, particularly at schools and informal work centres, so they could take those lessons back to their homes.

PIETRO GARAU, Professor, Co-chair MDG Task Force on Slum Dwellers, noted that the world’s urban population was estimated at 3 billion in 2003, and expected to rise to 5 billion by 2030.  Almost all of the world’s population growth between 2000 and 2030 would be absorbed by urban areas in less developed regions.  Faced with those facts, why was the international community still reluctant to take on urban issues, particularly the urbanization of poverty?  Efforts were being made by several cities and countries to grant secure tenure to slum dwellers, which was directly related to better health and environments, and to an improved capacity to enter the formal employment sector.  Nothing was so urgent as improving slum dwellers’ lives, and recognizing that the process turned many of them from invisible people into citizens.

As much as living conditions in slums needed to be improved, cities must also learn to accommodate new urban dwellers in a manner that would prevent the recurrence of slums in developing countries.  Many cities were already considering measures to provide a more orderly development of cities, and preparing better than they did a few years ago for the urbanization challenge.  It was vital to get cities and local authorities more involved in the implementation process of the Johannesburg and Millennium Goals.

Among the many African delegations to take the floor, the Mayor of Kampala, Uganda’s capital, said that much of what had been talked about affected his city.  He supported the call to involve women and children in designing plans for sanitation and water preservation.  As cities became more and more crowded, the issue of water preservation was becoming more critical.  The city had kicked off programmes in that area in schools, so that children could take what they learned back home.  He added that, while Uganda did not have much of a problem with access to water, urban areas would soon have to start putting more of an emphasis on recycling technologies, as cities became more crowded.

The representative of trade unions posed a series of questions to the panel, asking, among other things:  What were the main causes of water contamination?  If the main contaminates were man made, what could be done to stop the activities that produced the pollutants?  And how could tensions or conflicts over cross-border rivers and lakes be better addressed?

Ireland, speaking on behalf of the European Union, stressed that investment in water and sanitation was vital for development, playing an important role in employment generation and poverty eradication, especially for women.  The failure to integrate goals for water, sanitation and human settlements would obstruct a major source of financing –- namely, development aid.

Addressing the questions of urban and rural poverty, Mr. GARAU said that they operated on a continuum, with one no more important than the other.  According to the aggregate of statistics, urban health, education and sanitation were better in urban than in rural areas, but urban health and life expectancy was as bad as or worse than the rural average.

Turning to Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP), he said that they should be government-owned, but that donors often called the show.  Governments should develop solid, credible plans showing the resources they needed, which would lend credibility to the entire PRSP process.

A member of the science and technology major group emphasized the importance of reviewing, maintaining and improving national data-collection networks, including those for floods and other disasters.  It was also important to develop more appropriate water and sanitation technologies, make them accessible to water users, and to rethink and reorient water education at all levels.

Highlighting the plight of small islands, Fiji’s representative stressed the many challenges to rural and urban planning, as urbanization exerted pressure on community systems, threatening to break them down.  Small islands were striving for improved standards of living, while maintaining cultural integrity.  Such a transition was not without its impact, such as degradation to land, marine and forest resources, as well as the inability of governments to keep up with the demand for basic services.

The representative of the indigenous peoples group said economic globalization was the main obstacle to the recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights and ensuring their access to essential services.  Now that multinational corporations had identified water as a commodity, rather than a human right, it appeared that it would be virtually impossible for indigenous and traditional communities to achieve even modest sustainable development goals.  Local communities must provide water services, she said, because it was clear that putting such services in the hands of multinationals did not work.  In today’s economic-based system, maximizing profits meant increasing consumption.  That was tragic for natural resources.  “Water must be maintained as a public trust”, she said.

The representative of Iran stressed the need for community and local management in achieving the Millennium Goals aimed at improving the lives of slum dwellers.  His Government had embarked on an ambitious and inclusive programme to enhance the lives of the country’s 5 million slum dwellers.  Among other things, it had proposed the establishment of neighbourhood-elected councils to promote targeted interests.

The United States’ representative said that PRSPs and other development surveys should not be just reports that sat on a shelf somewhere.  They should be the start of a process, with a role for all stakeholders, to work towards improving the lives of the poor.

Taking the floor again, Mr. Jolly said there was an important role for subsidizing advocacy to stimulate demand, but not for action.  That was because once poor communities were made aware of the problems they faced, the people themselves were able to come up with more appropriate, home-grown solutions.  On another issue, he warned the Commission, as well as donors and non-governmental organizations, that in many of the documents before the session there was very little information that systematically assessed water scarcity.  That was a very critical monitoring gap that needed to be addressed as soon as possible.

Ms. CATLEY-CARLSON said the discussion today had made it clear that bridges were being built to move the world’s poor out of poverty and into sustainable development.  On an “ecosystem approach” to water management, she said it would be necessary for communities to take a serious, scientific look at pollution issues, waste water recycling, and even toilet design, along with studying water sources -- underground, in lakes, mangroves and rivers -– in order to get water management right.

Mr. GARAU said several important points had highlighted the rich discussion this morning.  He was pleased to hear delegations mention the importance of PRSPs, which were where recommendations, good ideas and good intentions were translated into ideas at the country level.  He had also been pleased to hear delegations give examples of plans or programmes that had been based on something more than consultations; rather, they had been based on actions initiated and perpetuated by local communities.

Other Cross-cutting Issues

Ireland’s representative, speaking for the European Union, said that shifting to more sustainable water consumption was vital in areas of little water production, and in reaching the Millennium Development Goals.  He also stressed the need for disaggregated gender equality analysis in water, sanitation and human settlement problems, noting that women played an important role in hygiene and raising awareness, especially for children.  As for health, he drew attention to the links between a lack of water and sanitation and communicable and water-borne diseases.

Other speakers emphasized the need for more widely shared scientific research, and the collection of socio-economic data worldwide.  They also highlighted the potential of education, which empowered people to take action on access to water and sanitation.

Responding to comments made, Ms. CATLEY-CARLSON emphasized that institutions must function properly in seeking water and sanitation goals.  Devising good policy was a crucial first step, but should be keyed to the regulatory and implementation authorities that would give life to it.

Mr. GARAU stressed the importance of vertical partnerships made up of central government, local government, and local groups, each of which emphasized actions better suited to address the most urgent problems in water, sanitation and human settlements.

The representative of Tunisia stressed the crucial water needs of his and other countries that bordered the vast SaharaDesert.  Specifically in Tunisia, over 80 per cent of the water was used for agriculture, with only 15 per cent set aside for other human needs.  So the Commission’s decision to address the theme, in connection with poverty eradication, was most welcome.

BØRGE BRENDE (Norway), Commission Chairman, introducing Part I of the Chairman’s summary, said the Commission’s first substantive session on sustainable development goals had been an in-depth review of progress made and lessons learned.  Participants had noted that many nations were off track in meeting Millennium Goals and Johannesburg targets, but they had generally agreed on the importance of access to acceptable water, sanitation and human settlements.

They had also noted that poverty had hindered efforts in sustainable development, and that water, sanitation and human settlement goals must be addressed in an integrated manner, he continued.  Lack of financial resources and technology transfer were major challenges in reaching agreed goals, while other constraints included a lack of institutional reform, fragmented community structures, a lack of community involvement, and limited private sector intervention in efforts to improve water, sanitation and human settlements. Many participants noted that sanitation was not always listed as a development priority, and that programmes often lacked focus and coordination.  The poor still had limited access to land, and lacked secure land tenure.

When the floor was opened for comment on the report, the document was welcomed and its comprehensive detail was praised.  One speaker urged the Chair to set out a concise action plan, drawn from his summary, as well as the discussions to take place during the high-level segment over the next three days, so that the Commission could maintain the momentum achieved this week throughout the intersessional period, and through to the 2005 session and beyond.

Another speaker said that the summary was indicative of the “widely divergent views” on implementation within the Commission.  In some cases, it highlighted one view on an issue, when several had been presented during the respective discussions.  Nevertheless, the focus should now be on how best to achieve the agreed goals and target on all the themes without engaging in policy diversions.

A speaker said that he would have hoped that the summaries of the statements made by delegations would have been more substantive, particularly to reflect the difficulties developing countries faced in their attempts to meet international development targets.  One delegation praised the interactive nature of the session as “truly unique” and asked if there was a way that could be reflected in the summary or in the Commission’s final report.  Others called for a better reflection of the discussions that took place in the regional reviews, and that more attention should have been paid to experiences shared on disaster mitigation, sustainable forest practices and regional participation.

* *** *