World Summit on Sustainable Development Department of Public Information - News and Media Services Division - New York
	Johannesburg, South Africa 26 August-4 September 2002	26 August 2002

PRESS CONFERENCE ON WATER FOR AFRICAN CITIES   Johannesburg -- a city built on gold and not on a river -- depended on healthy streams for water, and the UN-Habitat Water for African Cities programme had successfully launched the renewal of those streams and provided a framework for regulation and funding, the Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry of South Africa told correspondents today at a Summit press conference. Joining South African Minister Ronnie Kasrils were Yaw Barimah, Minister of Works and Housing of Ghana, Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, Executive Director of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UN-Habitat), and Tim Wirth, President of the United Nations Foundation. Noting that Johannesburg had been one of the cities chosen for the pilot project of UN-Habitat, Mr. Kasrils said that in the South West Township, known as Soweto, 60 per cent of the water supply leaked through bad taps and pipes. Since Johannesburg's selection for the UN-Habitat programme in 1997, a partnership had formed with UN-Habitat between the national, city and municipal government, as well as water companies and communities. Together, they had developed and applied to Johannesburg a model to ensure that water was conserved and managed in an integrated way. Ms. Tibaijuka said the water programme had sought to address inherited problems related to water supply and access. National governments had tried to supply water to the cities, but, with rapid urbanization and without appropriate water management, that had been difficult. With capital from the United Nations Foundation, seven cities in Africa had been helped, including in Ghana, South Africa and Senegal. The programme was entering its second phase of expansion to other African cities and also to Asia. The notion that water was free and available for all was not the case. Accountability and responsibility must be improved, in order to provide the poor with water. Many were paying some 40 per cent of their incomes. (Responding later to a question about the list of cities supported by the programme so far, she named: Nairobi, Lusaka, Johannesburg, Dakhar, Addis Ababa, Accram and Abidjan. Dar es Salaam had just been added to that list with a grant from the Swedish Government). Mr. Barimah, said that in his country people thought that water was forever and free. The Densu River and basin was one source of water supply, but degradation had made the treatment of water from that resevoir more expensive. A final university study had opened everyone's eyes to the real problems -- people were paying too much not because the water company was overbilling them, but because of waste in the whole system. Nationally, some 50 per cent of the water produced by Ghana's water company was unaccounted for and carrying the exercise of removing waste from the system to its logical limits would save perhaps 25 per cent of what had been lost. Mr. Wirth said the Foundation had been pleased to provide the initial funding for the Water for African Cities programme. Water was absolutely critical to the issue of equity. Poor people paid a lot more for water than rich people did and if the world was really serious about poverty, then the issue of water had to be addressed. After three years, the programme had worked so well that there was now a broader demand for it throughout Africa, as well as in Asia. That would also require the continued support of some developed countries, the World Bank and the United Nations, each critical to the continued success of the programme. Asked about specific steps to be taken at the Summit, Ms. Tibaijuka said that the road map to investment by the United Nations agencies in the next 10 years would be guided by the Millennium Development Goals, in which water and sanitation were important components. On the privatization of water, the subject of a further question, she said there had been both successful and non-successful cases. The latter were those where the private company concentrated on management and not on investment. Success with water privatization was measured differently by different people and that assessment was best done in private, she replied to another question. The criteria for success was improved services at an affordable price. The non-successful cases were those in which the water supply had continued to be intermittent, with no customer satisfaction. She invited the correspondent to review the database. Adding to her response, Mr. Barimah noted that some of the pipes for the water supply system in Ghana dated back some 70 to 80 years and were in serious need of replacement. Ghana envisaged private sector involvement to rehabilitate and maintain existing systems, thereby relieving government of that responsibility. The little money available to address the issue could be spent on increasing accessibility. In one major settlement without a water connection, for example, people were paying 10 to 15 times that of the urban population. The water privatization question was not an ideological one, but one about whether private industry or individuals could help deliver water on a consistent basis, the South African Minister asserted. Water was an enormously political issue, Mr. Wirth added. For people who believed that water was infinite and free, the threshold was very difficult to cross. Johannesburg and other enlightened local ministries had figured out how to begin to cost water and provide it at a price that people could afford. To those who said that that was excessive private involvement, he would say that for cities like Johannesburg to allocate water fairly and consistently, some sort of pricing tool was needed.   Meeting Summaries Summit News