Summary

The weekly NGO briefing on 16 November 2006 looked at this year’s Human Development Report, entitled “Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis.” Speakers included Mr. Arunabha Ghosh, Policy Specialist, Human Development Report Office, UNDP; Mr. Kazuo Sunaga, Minister, Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations; and Ms. Patricia Dandonoli, President and Chief Executive Officer of WaterAid America.

Mr. Ghosh began by summarizing the findings of the 2006 Human Development Report. He stressed that the world’s water crisis had more to do with poverty, inequality, and power politics than with the physical scarcity of water itself. The report looked at water for life (i.e. drinking water, sanitation), and water for livelihood (i.e. agricultural use of water). About 1.1 billion people (1 out of 6 people) in the world lacked regular access to clean water, and about 2.6 billion lacked access to proper sanitation. Access referred to water availability within one kilometer of one’s home. Mr. Ghosh’s pointed out that lack of water as a basic resource resulted in two million child deaths a year from such preventable diseases as diarrhea. It also resulted in the deprivation of proper education as children frequently missed school due to illness and the burden of having to supply water for themselves from far away sources. This applied to girls in particular. Water crisis was closely linked to poverty as half of the people without access to clean water and proper sanitation lived on less than two dollars a day, furthermore explained Mr. Ghosh. However, economic growth was not enough to address this crisis. Government allocation of funds, tariff structures, and the cost of connection to water means all had to be factored in. Water stress and the warming of the climate also contributed to it. Water stress referred to policy induced scarcity and unsustainable overuse of water. The warming of the climate, among other things, was changing the time release of water as glaciers melt so that long term supplies of water become scarce. In conclusion, Mr. Ghosh stressed the importance of making water a human right as one of the four foundations for success in addressing the global water crisis. The other three were drawing up national strategies for water and sanitation, a Global Action Plan and increased international aid.

Mr. Kazuo Sunaga, Minister at the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations spoke about his country’s active support for water aid. As Mr. Ghosh had pointed out earlier, unlike most countries where the aid for water was stagnating, Japan has taken an initiative to invest in aid for water. Mr. Sunaga spoke of the role of Japan in addressing the world’s water crisis as water and sanitation was a top priority for the Government of Japan. Mr. Sunaga commended the Human Development Report for acknowledging the institutional role in access to water and sanitation. He was also pleased that the Report stressed the community based approach to addressing the issues, and emphasized the need for greater dialogue between governments and their communities. In order to increase the visibility of and prioritize the issue of water and sanitation, Japan had drafted a resolution on the matter to be presented to the General Assembly. The resolution stressed the need to help developing countries address this issue via internal and external reinforcements.

Ms. Dandonoli discussed the efforts and the role of her organization in addressing the global water and sanitation crisis. Her organization, WaterAid America, worked to deliver clean water, effective sanitation, and hygiene education to communities in need. These efforts were expected to reach up to one million people this year. WaterAid worked in collaboration with local partners to address the specific needs of a community. Thus, WaterAid was able to identify sustainable solutions to local issues that could be maintained by the communities themselves. WaterAid also helped construct appropriate local policy and advocacy activities to reinforce their work with water and sanitation. WaterAid helped communities learn about their right to water and understand water allocation, and guided them to ensure that the voices of the poor were heard. WaterAid backed the Human Development Report’s recommendation for a Global Action Plan for water. The plan would require donors to fill the funding gap for countries that committed at least one percent of their GDP to water and sanitation but still lacked the financial resources to meet the MDG target. Aid recipient countries would then be asked to meet and implement a “Three Ones framework” which represented one country plan, one coordinating body, and one monitoring and evaluating system.

Mr. Aziz began by introducing the newly established Ethics Office in the United Nations. He addressed the question of why the United Nations needed an Ethics Office by dispelling the popular belief that it was in direct response to the Oil-for-Food Programme scandal and other incidences involving peacekeeping missions. He clarified that the Ethics Office was born out of the United Nation’s staff consensus that ethics played a large role in public service and there was no substitute for ethical behaviour in the international public service. The Ethics Office, therefore, brought the ethical dimension of the United Nations to the conscious level and helped staff members locate the hidden ethical traps in their work. He pointed out that while some of the things people did were completely legal they may not be entirely ethical.

Ms. Nancy Hurtz-Soyka outlined the operational role of the Ethics Office, which was one of the newest offices at the United Nations, established at the beginning of 2006. Duties of the Ethics Office included: providing confidential advice and guidance to staff; developing content for ethics training modules (i.e. user friendly guides, training and education on ethics issues); administering, not reviewing, the financial disclosure programme; and protecting staff against retaliation for reporting misconduct or cooperating with authorized audits or investigations. Ms. Hurtz-Soyka concluded by saying that the Ethics Office was the manifestation of the ideals first established by the United Nations Charter over sixty years ago. She also mentioned that the entire United Nations senior management team, including the Secretary-General and the Deputy-Secretary-General participated in an ethics training course about two weeks earlier.

During the question-and-answer period, NGOs and the panel looked at further challenges facing the global water crisis. Conflict, energy needs, and climate change were all discussed as factors that exacerbated the water and sanitation crisis. The panel reaffirmed the importance of awareness-raising and of increasing the resources to address the issue. Mr. Ghosh pointed out that water and sanitation currently accounted for about five percent of the international aid budget.

A short film, produced by UNDP, featuring Mr. Kevin Watkins, Director of the UNDP Human Development Report Office, was screened before the panel discussion.

The briefing was attended by about 80 representatives of NGOs, UN and Permanent Mission staff.

Only to be filled out by NGOs associated with DPI

Accreditation
Form 2007