Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 5 • Number 8 • 29th April 2005

INVESTMENT AND SMARTER AG TRADE REQUIRED FOR ACCESS TO WATER, EXPERTS SAY

Do More

Subscribe to the BioRes

* Required Field

Email Address: *

Country: *
Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua And Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas, The Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo Congo, Democractic Republic of the Cook Islands Costa Rica Cote D'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) Croatia (Hrvatska) Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic East Timor Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) Faroe Islands Fiji Islands Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia, The Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard and McDonald Islands Honduras Hong Kong S.A.R. Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea Korea, North Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macau S.A.R. Macedonia, Former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, The New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Panama Papua new Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Island Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Reunion Romania Russia Rwanda Saint Helena Saint Kitts And Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent And The Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia And The South Sandwich Islands Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Svalbard And Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad And Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks And Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States United States Minor Outlying Islands Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City State (Holy See) Venezuela Vietnam Virgin Islands (British) Virgin Islands (US) Wallis And Futuna Islands Yemen Yugoslavia Zambia Zimbabwe

Employment Sector (Academia, Govt., Private Sector, NGO, IGO): *

First Name:

Last Name:

Organisation:

Enter the letters shown above:*

Download this issue

See also

INVESTMENT AND SMARTER AG TRADE REQUIRED FOR ACCESS TO WATER, EXPERTS SAY

Participants at the 13th Session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-13) meeting from 11-22 April in New York, US said that better management and increased investment in water and sanitation must become a political priority to reach international targets. A number of participants, however, expressed disappointment with the meeting’s failure to make the decisions on the policy and practical measures required to address the problems identified in last year’s CSD-12 review session (see BRIDGES Trade Biores, 14 May 2004). In addition, a new report presented by several of the world’s leading international water organizations on 20 April at the meeting offered a new water management approach to ensure future food supply.

Political commitment needed

The 13th session of CSD is the first policy setting session since the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) and many of the participants expressed disappointment about what they considered a lack of political commitment and the vague terms used in the final decisions adopted. "Most of the people who negotiate these agreements in New York are not those who manage the environment or natural resources. They do not realize the economic cost of not taking decisions," said Costa Rica’s Minister of Environment and Energy Carlos Rodriguez. This concern was echoed by IUCN-World Conservation Union Director-General Achim Steiner who said the CSD "failed to make significant progress on the targets and policy options for water and sanitation as agreed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development."

The need for political will also featured highly in Mikhail Gorbachav’s keynote address to the CSD. The former President of the Soviet Union denounced the lack of political commitment to the 1.1 billion impoverished people deprived of access to drinking water. Emphasising the importance of government policy in the provision of water and sanitation, the Nobel Peace Price laureate and founder of Green Cross International urged politicians to establish water as a human right. Reflecting the view of several civil society groups, Gorbachev called for the creation of an international water treaty that recognises the right to water and commits governments to ensure access to water and sanitation for all.

In the second week of the CSD-13 a high-level panel including experts and several finance and development ministers examined the problem of underinvestment in infrastructure which is particularly acute in developing countries. Participants agreed that donor countries must reach the target donation of 0.7 percent of gross national product to official development assistance in order for developing countries to have the funding necessary to provide adequate water infrastructure. Addressing the panel, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan drew attention to the fact that national policies must be backed by a supportive multilateral regime. In this context he underlined the importance of a breakthrough in the Doha round of trade negotiations in order for developing countries to fight poverty and for the Millennium Development Goals to be met.

While the first week of the CSD gave room for interactive discussions between government officials and representatives from Inter and Non-Governmental Organisations, the second week included meetings with ministers and negotiations on the final document of the meeting. In the final decision document that will be submitted to the UN Economic and Social Council for review at its annual session in July, the Commission recognised governments’ responsibility for the WSSD goals but underlined the importance of a supportive international policy environment with a universal, rule-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system. CSD-13 also called for increased transfer of technology and financial resources from all sources and recognised the need for both public-public and public-private partnerships in water provision and sanitation.

Aiming to provide policy recommendations to enhance the achievement of international targets relating to water, sanitation and human settlement, the final document proved tedious to negotiate. The question of how to finance water provision arose as a particularly controversial issue. Although China and G-77, a group of developing countries, emphasised the need for more Official Development Assistance, the EC stressed the need for cost recovery and the US wanted more focus on public-private partnership. The final text adopted calls for "increased resources from all sources."

Background

Established as a result of Agenda 21, the work programme adopted during the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the CSD works to monitor and report on the implementation of this work programme. The CSD also uses the Millennium Development Goals, such as the aim of halving by 2015 the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation, as benchmarks for assessing its progress.

CSD-13 was the second session under the Commission’s new multi-year programme, adopted at CSD-11 in spring 2003, and the first policy session since the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development. The Commission’s programme is organised on the basis of seven two-year cycles, with each cycle focusing on selected thematic clusters. For the first two-year cycle (2004-2005), the CSD is focusing on water, sanitation and human settlements, to be followed by energy, climate change, atmosphere and industrial development issues in 2006-2007. The 2008-2009 cycle will include agriculture, land and desertification. A number of cross cutting issues are addressed during each cycle, including poverty eradication, sustainable development in a globalising world, protecting and managing the natural resource base for economic and social development, means of implementation and the institutional framework for sustainable development.

CSD-14 will be held at UN headquarters in New York on 1-12 May 2006 under the themes of energy for sustainable development, industrial development, air pollution/atmosphere, climate change and cross-cutting issues.

A thirsty world: Trade in food is trade in water

On the side-lines of CSD-13, leading water scientists from the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), IUCN-The World Conservation Union and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) launched the report "Let It Reign: The New Water Paradigm For Global Food Security". Linking water shortages, food supply and population growth, the report calls for a new water management approach to ensure future food supply. Food production is a highly water consuming activity, they say, and agriculture accounts for 70 to 90 percent of available water supply in developing countries. The amount of water used to produce a commodity has been called "virtual water" that can be said to be a "virtual" part of the final product. International trade, the report shows, involves significant amounts of trade in such virtual water (See Bridges Monthly November 2004). At the global level, the report states, if exporters of products that are water-intensive are using water more efficiently and have larger stocks of water than importers, such virtual water trade can contribute to the conservation of water resources by minimising global water use. The report calls for improved water management and the elimination of most agricultural subsidies and market access distortions in order to ensure that agricultural policies and international trade take into account relative water levels in different parts of the world.

Additional Resources

"Let It Reign: The New Water Paradigm For Global Food Security," SIWI/IFPRI/IUCN/IWMI report

"Scientists Unite in Call for Action as Global Food Demands Threaten to Outstrip World Water Supply," IWMI PRESS RELEASE, 20 April 2005; "U.N. Treaty to protect the basic human right to water?" IPD UN JOURNAL, Vol.13, No. 73, 23 April 2005; "UN forum ends with agreement on measures to provide clean water, basic sanitation and housing" UN NEWS RELEASE 25 April 2005; "Water, sanitation, housing goals worth the investment, Annan says" UN NEWS RELEASE 18 April 2005: "Ministers call for more aid, debt relief, domestic funds to meet goals on water, sanitation, slums, as UN Commission concludes" UN PRESS RELEASE 25 April 2005;" Is Water a Human Right, or Just Another Widget" IPS PRESS; ENB, Vol. 5 No. 227, 25 April 2005. "Sustainable Development Commission Fails to Sustain Enthusiasm" ENS 26 April 2005

.