INTEREST GROWS IN NEGLECTED GLOBAL WATER TREATY

Delegates of 14 countries attending the World Water Forum tonight signed pledges of support to a growing call to bring into force a global water treaty that has languished in limbo for more than a decade as anxiety grows about the increased potential for conflict in a world increasingly short of water.

The pledges were made at an awards ceremony held at the forum by a coalition of leading international and civil society organizations to “celebrate the accomplishments of the world’s leading countries in international water policy.”

Recognised by the awards were the 16 countries signed up to the UN International Convention on Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (the UN Watercourses Convention) - Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Namibia, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Qatar, South Africa, Sweden, Syria and Uzbekistan.

The delegates said they shared WWF’s concern that the poor coordination in river basin regulation between nations “represents a major threat to international peace and to the world’s energy and food security.” The pledge also noted that climate change would worsen the global water crisis.

Countires make a start on internal approval processes

The pledge to push for more countries to join the convention was signed by Slovenian President Danilo Tulk, and government delegates from Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Ghana, Greece, Iraq, Niger, Sierra Leone, Spain, and Syria. Internal processes for ratification have already started in some of the 12 countries at the event not already party to the Convention.

Dr Shaddad Attili, head of the Palestine Water Authority also signed, following the reading of a declaration by President Mahmoud Abbas earlier during the Forum that Palestine would ratify the convention once it attained statehood. When that occurs the River Jordan will have the most coverage of any international watercourse, with four of its five riparian states acceding to the Convention.

The UN Watercourses Convention provides a framework for common and cooperative management for the rivers, lakes, wetlands and aquifers crossing or forming international borders. An overwhelming majority of nations voted for the Convention in the UN General Assembly in 1997, but fewer than half the required number have proceeded to ratify it a national level.

“If fully enacted it would provide a strong basis for sharing and caring for the water draining half the world’s land surface and vital to the water supplies of 40 per cent of humanity,” said Flavia Loures, WWF International Water Law and Policy Senior Program Officer

World Water Forum vague on bridging divides

The UN Watercourses Convention has been one of the most contentious topics at the World Water Forum, with specific mention of the convention and its potential for bridging divides on water excluded from the Ministerial Declaration due to be issued on World Water Day (March 22) tomorrow.

“It is ironic in the extreme that with a World Water day themed around sharing transboundary waters the ministerial declaration to be issued that day takes great pains to avoid mentioning the only available instrument for global co-operation,” Ms. Loures said.

In lively World Water Forum discussions on the UN Watercourses Convention, it was also seen as a key legal instrument to foster cooperation on climate change adaptation in shared freshwater systems, crucial as river flows falter and extreme events such as floods and droughts increase in frequency and severity.

Millions of dollars in aid funds for developing cooperative water management schemes for some of the world’s major – and most contentious – river systems also remain available but unapplied for, although some of the countries concerned have been able to cooperate on marine issues.

The multi-stakeholder campaign to have the UN Convention on Watercourses brought into effect is supported by the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation, the European Water Partnership, Conservation International, the Global Nature Fund, Living Lakes Partners, Green Cross International, IUCN and WWF, along with many governments in Europe and Africa.

“As climate change further exacerbates the water crisis, the difficulties and cost of expanding and sustaining water security will rise, and potentially very steeply,” said Green Cross International President Alexander Likhotal.

“The risks from failing to act are increasingly understood to be high, and include economic instability, loss of quality of life and reversal of gains in poverty reduction, more frequent disaster and ecological degradation. Therefore, we are calling for a swift ratification of the Convention ."

Source: Panda.org, 23.03.2009

WATER DECLARATION VAGUE ON MAIN ISSUES

The world will not lessen its mounting worries over water until it is clearly on track to dealing with the twin threats of water mismanagement and climate change, WWF International Director General James Leape said on World Water Day today.

He said it was good to see climate change impacts climbing up the agenda at the World Water Forum, concluding today in Istanbul, Turkey but disappointing that so little progress had been made in addressing glaring water mismanagement issues around the globe.

“All WWF’s work in this area is showing us again and again that it is the well-managed or restored river systems that cope best with the climate change impacts we are seeing now and those that are yet to come,” Leape said.

“This is clearly an issue of water management, but the ministerial declaration flowing from the World Water Forum is more a collection of platitudes than a plan for action.”

Mr Leape said that, with the World Water Forum having a theme of Bridging Divides on Water and World Water Day a theme of sharing cross border waters over borders, it was surprising that the Ministerial Declaration contained no mention of an existing international agreement on sharing waters that has languished in limbo for more than a decade without enough signatories to bring it into effect.

More than 100 countries participated in an overwhelming vote for the UN Convention on the Non Navigational Uses of International Watercourses in 1997 but only 16 countries, less than half the number needed, have so far signed it.

“It is surprising indeed that with increased conflict over increasingly scarce water expected to be one of the impacts of climate change the forum and its ministerial process did not strongly urge adoption of the only existing global instrument for reducing water conflict,” Mr Leape said.

“We see this global agreement as providing the much needed global framework to drive consistent, equitable and sustainable river basin management.

“But despite efforts to keep the UN Watercourses Convention off the international agenda we are heartened that more and more countries are showing increased interest in moving to adopt it.”

Mr Leape said that the Ministerial Declaration, while not a plan for action, had put on the international agenda the need to preserve environmental flows, the need to ensure participation in water planning and management and the issue of corruption on to the international water agenda

Water availability, quality and predictability are the main ways the majority of the world population will most immediately and most severely feel the impacts of climate change. .

“Obviously, we can become more efficient in how we use water and better protect the natural landscapes that provide most people with most of their water,” Leape said.

“But we also must address the global water crisis with serious global action on climate change.” WWF is campaigning to have the world’s nations sign up to the emissions and deforestation reductions necessary to prevent unacceptable risks of catastrophic climate change at a crucial UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December. The meeting is tasked with coming up to a replacement international agreement to the existing – and clearly inadequate – Kyoto Protocol.

Hundreds of millions around the world are expected to support the campaign next Saturday night by turning their lights off during WWF’s Earth Hour.

Source: Panda.org, 23.03.2009

5th WORLD WATER FORUM CALLS FOR JOINT ACTION ON WATER CHALLENGES

The 5th World Water Forum, the largest water-related event in the world, concluded in Turkey on Sunday, or the World Water Day, with firm commitments of tackling global water challenges jointly in the context of sustainable development.

The forum, organized every three years by World Water Council (WWC) and the host country, was attended by a record of 25,000 participants from all over the world, including a number of heads of state, more than 90 ministers, 63 mayors, 156 delegations and 148 parliamentarians.

IMMINENT WATER CRISIS

During the seven-day forum, the attendees agreed that water is an increasingly vital resource in the 21st century, when we are challenged by overpopulation, climate change, ecosystem collapse, urbanization, consumption pattern change and financial crisis.

"Water is the most fundamental element of life," said Turkish President Abdullah Gul at the opening ceremony of the forum on March 16, which is also attended by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Tajikistan's President Emomali Rahmon, Crown Prince Willem Alexander of the Netherlands, Japanese Crown Prince Naruhito Kotaishi and South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-Soo.

"It's clear that we have to place special importance on water," since it is "one of the most crucial elements" that drive sustainable development, Gul said.

According to statistics of the forum, only 2.5 percent of all the water on Earth is freshwater, two-thirds of which is in glaciers and polar ice caps. Therefore, available freshwater represents less than 1 percent of the world's total water stock.

Furthermore, a study released at the forum showed that 85 percent of the world's population live on the droughty land of the Earth. More than 1 billion people living in arid and semiarid parts of the world have little access to renewable water sources.

According to the 3rd UN World Water Development Report released by UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization during the forum, more than 900 million people still have no access to drinking water and 2.5 billion people are still deprived of sanitation.

Meanwhile, the world's population, currently estimated at 6.6 billion, is growing by about 80 million each year, which means demand for freshwater is increasing by 64 billion cubic meters a year.

World Resources, a joint publication of the UN Environment Program, the World Bank and the World Resources Institute, warned that "the world's thirst for water is likely to become one of the most pressing resource issues of the 21st century."

PLATFORM FOR DEBATE AND SHARE

Some 100 discussions or roundtables were held during the event with a variety of topics, including climate change, transboundary waters, water-related risk management, managing and protecting water resources and water investment.

Three documents were adopted at the forum, namely the Istanbul Declaration of Heads of State on Water; Istanbul Water Consensus for Local and Regional Authorities; and Istanbul Ministerial Statement, underlining the acceptance of sustainable water schemes at all levels.

A number of prizes was awarded to those who contributed to cooperation and development of water resources. Chinese city of Guangzhou was honored on Wednesday the first-class Mexico Water Prize for the government's excellent water management in recent years.

A water expo and a water fair were also staged during the forum, which attracted hundreds of companies from Germany, Netherlands, China, South Korea and Japan, to show the latest water-related technology and products.

The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were highlighted among all the discussions. One of the MDGs, created in 2000 during the millennium summit, is to halve the population without sustainable access to drinking water and sanitation by 2015.

"The 5th World Water Forum comes at a crucial time, since more than half of the time proposed to achieve the MDGs has passed," said Oktay Tabasaran, secretary general of the forum.

Water privatization turned out to be a thorny issue which officials avoided to mention. Some 200 activists of the People's Water Forum, a counter forum of the official one, convened Thursday to protest against water privatization and present alternative visions of water management, Kazinform cites Xinhua.

On the opening day of the forum, Turkish police prevented a group, which accused the forum of water commercialization, from protesting in front of the main venue.

Source: KAZINFORM, 23.03.2009