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dam-l World Water Forum
It appears that Water's movers and shakers are having meetings before the
big one in the Hague next month. NGO representation at this time is only
from WWF, which is not in touch with the grassroots and is notoriously a
sell-out organization.
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this is a short news up-date about the pre-ministerial (IPC) session that
was held earlier this week in preparation for The Second World Water Forum,
in the Hague (17th - 22nd March).
Regards,
UN Environment and Development Committee
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IPC Meeting
The second pre-ministerial session took place in Amsterdam on Monday 31st
January and Tuesday 1st February. Representatives from over 80 governmental
delegations, the Global Water Partnership, World Water Vision, UNESCO,
UNEP, the World Meterological Organisation, World Bank and other agencies
attended. Discussion was focused around The Hague Declaration which will be
the main output of the ministerial conference, that is taking place as part
of the forum on Tuesday 21st and Wednesday 22nd March.
Although delegates were unable to finalise the precise text of the draft
declaration the IPC chair (Marcel van den Heuvel, Project Secretariat and
World Water Fair) promised the final draft would be ready within the next
two weeks. It will also be made available on the forum web site
(www.worldwaterforum.org).
It was broadly agreed that the declaration will outline a process that
feeds into the next international water forum in Bonn, in January 2000, as
well as at the Rio + 10 Earth Summit conference later that same year. The
draft text is divided into three sections:
* The Preamble
Highlighting the present and future need for greater water security.
* The challenges
An outline of seven cross-cutting themes: Integrated water resource
management; shared and transboundary water resources; water as a basic
need; water and agriculture; water pricing; floods; governance and
cooperation.
* Meeting the challenges
A definition of the process by which national strategies will seek to meet
these challenges, to include the development of collaborative partnerships,
as well as institutional, technological and financial innovations.
Governments would play a central role in creating an "enabling environment"
for such programmes and initiatives. Other organisations would also need to
take responsibility for making "opportunities' out of the challenges.
Non-governmental Input at the Meeting
At the beginning of the session four major "stakeholder" groups (gender,
youth, NGOs and industry) made brief statements. The gender representative
(Jennifer Francis of IRC International Water Sanitation Centre) outlined
the key theme of the gender "major group" session at The Forum, " sharing
burdens, benefits and responsibilities", taking place on Friday 17th March.
She stated that for the Framework For Action and Vision processes to be
successful, the priority must be toward capacity building strategies, which
utilise the traditional and community knowledge, as well as learn from
existing and previous cases of good practice.
The NGO representative (Chris Tydeman, WWF-UK) invited all those present to
attend the NGO session on Saturday 18th March, looking at
"people-orientated river-basin management". In regards to the ministerial
process, he pointed out that for major stakeholders to effectively
participate they must also be given the capacity to do so. Various parties
were concerned that there had been insufficient/fragmented incorporation of
southern NGO's and other developing country organisations into the World
Water Vision (WWV) and Framework For Action (FFA) processes. Within the
draft declaration, he pointed to the weak reference made towards the
natural environment and hydrological cycles, including the link between
water with climate change. He also highlighted the lack of reference to
clear targets, mechanisms for financial support or timetables, all of which
are necessary to encourage further work towards meeting urgent water needs.
The two youth representatives (from the Hague International Model United
Nations) outlined their programme on Sunday 19th March "A long term vision
on life and environment in the 21st century". They pointed out that the
young were the most vulnerable group in society and had a significant
contribution to make as the future leaders and decision makers.
Finally, Allerd Stikker, of the CEO Business panel, presented an outline of
the industry session (Monday 20th March), which he said would focus on the
contribution that private industry could make toward meeting water needs.
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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