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Message from the Secretary General of the United Nations
 The theme of World
Environment Day 2003 — “Water: Two Billion People are Dying for
It!” — highlights the centrality of water to human survival and
sustainable development.
At
the Millennium Summit and World Summit on Sustainable
Development, the international community set measurable,
time-bound commitments for the provision of safe water and
sanitation. These targets — to reduce by half the proportion of
people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and
basic sanitation services, both by the year 2015 — are vital in
and of themselves, but are also crucial if we are to meet the
other Millennium Development Goals, including reducing child
mortality, combating malaria, eradicating extreme poverty and
hunger, empowering women, and improving the lives of slum
dwellers.
Current statistics are disturbing. One person in six lives
without regular access to safe drinking water. Over twice that
number — 2.4 billion people — lack access to adequate
sanitation. Water-related diseases kill a child every eight
seconds, and are responsible for 80 per cent of all illnesses
and deaths in the developing world — a situation made all the
more tragic by our long-standing knowledge that these diseases
are easily preventable.
Although the provision of water services has risen across the
developing world during the past 20 years, those gains have
largely been cancelled out by population growth. Many parts of
the world now face the spectre of water scarcity because of
climate change, pollution and over-consumption. Our challenge is
to provide water services to all, especially the poor; to
maximize water productivity, especially in agriculture, which
accounts for the lion’s share of global water use yet is often
inefficient in many of its routine water-using practices; and to
ensure that rivers and groundwater aquifers that are shared
between two or more countries are equitably and harmoniously
managed.
What is needed, along with fresh water, is fresh thinking. We
need to learn how to value water. While in some instances that
may mean making users pay a realistic price, it must never mean
depriving already marginalized people of this vital resource. It
is one of the crueller ironies of today’s world water situation
that those with the lowest income generally pay the most for
their water.
Fresh thinking also means finding practical, appropriate
solutions to ensure the reliable and equitable supply of water.
Some of these solutions are simple and cheap. Rainwater
harvesting, for instance, could help up to 2 billion people in
Asia alone. End-of-pipe water purification and public health
education about basic hygiene practices would go a long way
towards alleviating the global disease burden caused by dirty
water.
Providing adequate sanitation and sustainable freshwater
supplies will also require significant new investment in
infrastructure and technology. To meet the agreed targets, it is
estimated that annual spending on safe drinking water and
sanitation will have to more than double.
On
this World Environment Day, in this, the International Year of
Freshwater, let us pledge to do our utmost to respond to the
plight of two billion of our fellow human beings, who are dying
for want of water and sanitation.
Kofi A. Annan
United Nations Secretary-General
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