Autralia may not have enough water to grow food
Marking World Water Day, UN to launch Water for Life Decade
21 March 2005 – To spur efforts by governments and civil society to meet
agreed targets on halving the number of people lacking access to safe
drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015, the United Nations is launching
the international Water for Life Decade tomorrow on World Water Day.
With agriculture being the main consumer of water and women in developing
countries often being the main carriers of water, UN Secretary-General Kofi
Annan said in a message
<http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/sgsm9766.doc.htm> , "We need to
increase water efficiency, especially in agriculture. We need to free women
and girls from the daily chore of hauling water, often over great distances.
We must involve them in decision-making on water management."
The least progress was being made in providing basic sanitation and many
millions of children were dying each year from water-borne diseases, he
said, urging the world "to respond better" on an urgent matter of human
development and human dignity.
"And we must show that water resources need not be a source of conflict,"
but can be a catalyst for cooperation, Mr. Annan said.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO
<http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2005/100274/index.html> ), noting that
it now takes a ton of water to produce 2.2 pounds of wheat, said,
"Appropriate polices and good governance are needed to encourage and guide
farmers to make better use of water."
A continuing rise in farm productivity of 67 per cent is needed to meet food
requirements between 2000 and 2030, but the increase in water use could be
kept down to 14 per cent, FAO's Land and Water Division Director Kenji
Yoshinaga said.
The agency's water management expert, Jean-Marc Faurès said, "Agriculture is
now coming under much more scrutiny as water resources are shrinking,
populations are growing and competition between sectors is increasing.
Substantial adaptations of agricultural policies are necessary."
On the question of health and sanitation, UN World Health Organization (WHO
<http://www.who.int/en/> ) Director-General Lee Jong-Wook said
<http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2005/s02/en/index.html> the
collective failure to tackle diarrhoeal disease, which was killing 30,000
people per week, was "a silent humanitarian crisis" that impeded the
achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs
<http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/> ), a list of targets for reducing many
socio-economic ills by 2015.
"It has been estimated that an additional investment of $11.3 billion per
year over and above current spending could result in a total economic
benefit of $84 billion annually," Dr. Lee said. "The economic benefits would
range from $3 to $34 per $1 invested, depending on the region."
The launch will be marked by a "Blessing of the Waters" tomorrow at UN
Headquarters in New York, while a web site
<http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade> on the decade will be made
available.
The actual debates and policy recommendations will, however, take place next
month at the 13th session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development
(CSD-13 <http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/csd/csd13/csd13.htm> ), which will
focus on the three themes of water, sanitation and human settlements. This
will be the first policy-setting session since the World Summit on
Sustainable Development was held in 2002 in Johannesburg, South Africa, and
government delegates will decide on concrete policy options and actions to
be taken to achieve the internationally agreed development goals and targets
in these three areas.
Among the goals CSD-13 will consider will be ensuring that no one is
excluded from essential water supplies.
"Examples of possible actions include the provision of targeted means-tested
direct subsidies to the poor, as in Chile, applying increasing block rate
tariff structures to water pricing, as in Côte d'Ivoire, and the provision
of a basic daily quantity of water free of charge to households, as in South
Africa," the Commission said in a release.
Countries could also make basic sanitation access affordable to poor people,
by subsidizing household hook-ups to sewerage services, as in Jamaica and in
Trinidad and Tobago, and providing cross-subsidies to meet the sanitation
needs of the poor, as in Egypt, it said.
