Launching of WWDR2
22 March 2006, Mexico CityStatement of Dr Kim Hak-Su
Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and
Executive Secretary
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the
Pacific
On behalf of all the Regional Commissions
Mr Chairman,
Mr Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO
Excellencies
Ladies and gentlemen,
I am pleased to be invited to speak on
behalf of all Regional Commissions at the launching of the Second
World Water Development Report and the commemoration of the World
Water Day of 2006.
At the outset, let me congratulate all the members of the UN Water
on the successful completion of the Second World Water Development
Report and also UNESCO for its effective support in housing the
World Water Assessment Programme, which serves as the secretariat
for the preparation of WWDR.
At this juncture, let us look back the experiences of the common
efforts of the United Nations agencies in producing the WWDRs.
Although this is only the second report in the series of WWDRs
to be issued by the UN Water, the preparation of WWDRs can be
easily recognized as an important mechanism for coordinating efforts
of the UN system to demonstrate the accountability of all UN agencies
in the water sector. Since water resources management has been
recognized as a global problem since the Rio de Janeiro Summit,
the United Nations system, including all the Regional Commissions,
must respond to the global needs as well as to mobilize global
resources to address the regional problems.
Over the past six years, since the beginning of the global efforts
to prepare WWDRs, I am pleased to note the improvement in focusing
global efforts of the UN system in the water sector for more effective
collaboration. The recognition of “sharing responsibilities”
in WWDR2 is an important evolution from the original focus of
“collaborative responsibility” of WWDR1 to reinforce
the practical focus of the common and joint undertaking of the
UN Water. The sharing of responsibilities has been called by the
General Assembly at its various sessions to address issues of
water resources management, when it called for extra efforts on
decentralization to the lowest level. The focus on “sharing
responsibilities” is also expected to benefit from the regional
specialization of the Regional Commissions. It is my firm conviction
that the promotion of “sharing responsibilities” is
expected to continue beyond the completion of WWDR2, if the UN
Water is to enhance impacts of WWDRs on policy and decision-making
of water resources management.
In this connection, I would like to assure you all of the commitment
of all the UN Regional Commissions to continue our support to
the common efforts of the UN-Water to bring key issues of “Water
is Life” to the top of development agenda to facilitate
the accomplishment of MDGs, in particular, we will continue to
contribute to enrich the outcomes of the UN-Water common efforts:
the WWDRs. It is indeed gratifying to note the active participation
of most Regional Commissions during the preparation of the last
two WWDRs in using their regional knowledge, experiences and networking
capacity for the preparation of case studies. I would like to
congratulate UN-Water for its ability to make use of the regional
knowledge of UNECE on environmental conservation and development
indicators to contribute to searching global trends on these areas
of water resources management. It remains a major challenge for
UN-Water to capitalize on the resourcefulness of regional efforts
to contribute to the global efforts on integrated water resources
management for sustainable development on the one hand, and to
better reflect the contribution of the United Nations as a system
to this global challenge. In this context, I would like to bring
to your attention the following facts:
1. Inter-regional efforts to deal with the complexity
of water resources management
The UN Regional Commissions have responded positively to the recommendations
of the Secretary-General and the UN Development Group in developing
several joint activities and cooperation projects in the field
of water resources. Among them are the Special Programme for Economies
of the Central Asia jointly implemented by UNECE and UNESCAP;
the inter-regional project on “Capacity building for sustainable
utilization, management and protection of internationally shared
groundwater in the Mediterranean region” jointly undertaken
by UNESCWA, UNECA, and UNECE, and the project on “Preparatory
Assistance to Assess Socio-economic Impacts of Natural Disasters”
jointly initiated and implemented by UNESCAP, UNDP and UNECLAC.
Apart from these established projects, the Regional Commissions
have also actively exchanged their experiences in various aspects
of water resources management, such as flood management, legal
framework for national and transboundary water resources management
and IWRM. It is hoped that experiences from these inter-regional
cooperative efforts could be integrated into future WWRDs.
2. Regional experiences relevant to global efforts
Let me start this point by mentioning the statement of our Secretary-General,
Mr Kofi Annan, on the significance of the Aarhus Convention: “Convention
on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making
and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters” which was
initiated by UNECE: “Although regional in scope, the significance
of the Aarhus Convention is global. It is by far the most impressive
elaboration of principle 10 of the Rio Declaration, which stresses
the need for citizen's participation in environmental issues and
for access to information on the environment held by public authorities.
As such it is the most ambitious venture in the area of environmental
democracy so far undertaken under the auspices of the United Nations."
The example of the Aarhus Convention, which has important bearing
on the governance of water resources and thus the successful implementation
of IWRM as recommended by the World Summit on Sustainable Development
in Johannesburg in 2002, is one of several cases in point. Other
examples include the UNECE Convention on the Protection and Use
of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes, which celebrates
this year the ten-year anniversary since its entry into force;
the UNECE/WHO-EURO Protocol on Water and Health; and the various
initiatives undertaken at the regional level in which the UN Regional
Commissions played an active part, such as the partnership of
UNECE with FAO, UNEP, Ramsar Convention and the Ministerial Conference
for the Protection of Forests in Europe, the Africa Water Facility
and the Asia-Pacific Water Forum, which UNESCAP participated in
launching at this World Water Forum. Of particular relevance is
the development of the African Water Development Report ( AWDR)
by the UN Water/Africa group led by UNECA which provides a more
in-depth Reporting mechanism and can serve as a model for other
Regional Reports. It is rooted in a parallel effort to develop
the African Water Information Clearing House ( AWICH www.uneca.org/awich
) which when completed will resolve existing bottlenecks related
to accurate and timely water information for planning and decision-making
in the Africa Region.
All the above examples are living experiences of the global efforts
to improve stewardship for water resources management. They also
reflect concrete contribution of the UN system to meeting the
global challenges in response to the call of the General Assembly
of the United Nations. Again, it is hope these could be better
reflected in future WWDRs.
3. Development of tools for water resources management
The role of UNECE in coordinating the work of indicators of the
first WWDR reflects the ability of the UN Water to make use of
tools and know-how of the Regional Commissions in the preparation
of WWDRs. I would like to encourage the UN-Water to continue its
efforts to make use of the expertise developed by the Regional
Commissions over the years in this respect. On behalf of UNESCAP,
I am pleased to inform the meeting of two recent achievements
related to integrated water resources management (in short IWRM)
and on development of tools for more effective risk management.
With respect to the development of a tool to support IWRM, UNESCAP
has successfully develop a set of guidelines on strategic planning
and management of water resources development, in short SPM of
water resources, to respond to the request of the United Nations
General Assembly at its 19th Special Session, held in 1997, to
develop strategic approaches to freshwater resources management.
The Guidelines has been posted on its website since 2003 and applied
to case studies in 17 countries in Asia and the Pacific. In these
efforts, UNESCAP was assisted by the Regional Office of FAO on
the establishment of an E-network on SPM of Water for Asia and
the Pacific and the reproduction of CD-ROM on the common efforts
of the two organizations, which are available at the Water Fair.
UNESCAP was also assisted by the UNEP Collaborative Centre on
Water and Environment for the financial resources to further develop
the tool for linking IWRM to environmental management in South-East
Asia. Similarly UNECA has undertaken subregional capacity building
and training activities in all of Africa’s sub regions and
continues to provide substantive support to the African Minister’s
Council on Water (AMCOW) on issues such as Inter-Basin Water Transfer
(IBWT) and Hydropower for Sustainable Development in Africa.
With respect to risk management of water-related disasters, under
the framework of a joint project of UNESCAP, ECLAC and UNDP aiming
at enhancing national capacity in the region on assessment of
socio-economic impacts of water-related disasters, UNESCAP has
been able to develop a special template to facilitate assessment
of socio-economic impacts of water-related disasters. This UNESCAP
template on assessment of socio-economic impacts of water-related
disasters, expected to be fully operational in April 2006, will
be disseminated widely in the Asia-Pacific region as well as in
other regions of the World.
On this occasion, I would like to express, on behalf of all the
Regional Commissions, our sincere appreciation to all the Member
countries for the support in our efforts to effectively integrate
the complex water resources management process into the socio-economic
development of our five regions. I also wish to note the fruitful
collaboration between the five Regional Commissions on the one
hand and all other United Nations agencies on the other in addressing
the global issues of water resources.
The mountain of challenges on IWRM remains ahead of us. I hope
the launching of WWDR2 will mark another important milestone of
the global efforts to meet the development aspiration of the present
and future generation towards sustainable development of our World.
Thank you for the kind attention.
