Steering Committee Meeting on the Pan African Implementation and Partnership Conference

Welcome Statement

by Mr. Josué Dioné
Director, Sustainable Development Division

14-15 April
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

It is my pleasure to welcome you again to deliberate on one of the important challenges for Africa today: the development and management of the region's water resources to improve the livelihoods of the millions living on the edge of survival.

The last time I met some of you in Nairobi, the focus was on how to give substance to the necessary partnerships, both within and outside the UN family, for the implementation of the African Water Agenda. This short Meeting will focus essentially on organizing the first Pan African Conference on Water.

One might ask why another Conference? Why not just implement the African Water Vision 2025? How long can we keep talking to each other?

Dear Colleagues,

Your deliberations here should result in not just another Conference, but one which moves us from analysis to implementation through sustained partnerships and well funded commitments based on irrevocable political will.

The proposed Conference will have four distinct characteristics:

• It will focus on implementation of programmes and projects.

• It will build partnerships to mobilize both internal and external financial and technological resources.

• It will yield clear political support from our elected Ministers organized as the African Ministerial Council on Water (AMCOW).

• It will bring about unity of purpose by all stakeholders in Africa's Water Resources.

The objectives of the Conference are well defined and will need refinement as progress is made in the related preparatory activities. Already, apart from our regular partners, many potential partners such as the European Space Agency have indicated their interest in participating and contributing both technological and financial resources to the Conference.

The Year of Fresh Water will be formally closed here in this Conference Hall and all the World's focus and hopefully pockets will be open to the outcomes of your efforts.

Already we have firm commitments from Global Water Friends such as Prince Willem Alexander, Crown Prince of the Netherlands, who are willing not only to lend their prestige, but also to participate actively towards helping Africa face this major development challenge.

From Vision, it is now time for Action and it is my sincere hope that the singularity of purpose, which has motivated all of you from The Hague through Johannesburg and Kyoto, will yield concrete results here in Addis Ababa.

Your success in this effort will go a long way towards reducing the endemic poverty, which is the mother of Afro-pessimism. It will also help our dear continent launch its blue revolution, which is both a pre-requisite and an integral component to other necessary revolutions in both food security and sustainable development.

I wish you success and commit the hospitality of my Division and ECA to ensure a comfortable stay in Addis for you all.

Thank you