UNECE
INTERGOVERNMENTAL PREPARATORY MEETING
NEW YORK, 28 FEBRUARY 2005 (10 .00-13.00)
Chair's summary, ECE Commission Session,
23 February 2005
Water, sanitation and human settlements in the UNECE region: challenges and policy
options
The Commission examined major policy options for water, sanitation and human settlements
in the UNECE region taking into account the outcome of the Regional Implementation
Meeting in January 2004, the conclusions of the twelfth session of the Commission on
Sustainable Development in April 2004 and the challenges identified by the Parties to the
UNECE Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and
International Lakes (UNECE Water Convention) and by the Committee on Human
Settlements thereafter .
Although there were many specific regional concerns and approaches to improve water and
sanitation, the Commission concluded that lessons learned in the European context might
prove to be valuable for other regions in the world, taking into account similar proportions of
people without access to safe water and sanitation in Europe and at the global scale . Pollution
and overuse of rivers, lakes and groundwaters became also a concern for many developing
countries, which share these waters with other riparian States in transboundary water basins,
too.
The Commission stressed that despite the progress achieved, there was a need for actionoriented
local and national measures as well as regional cooperation to speed up efforts to
meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Johannesburg Plan of Implementation
(JPoI) commitments, particularly in countries in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central
Asia (EECCA) and some South-East European (SEE) countries, which include five among
the fifty poorest countries in the world.
The Commission took note of the Report by the Executive Secretary (E/ECE/1421) and
agreed that the following action on water, sanitation and human settlements were of utmost
priority to countries in the region, in particular the EECCA and SEE countries .
Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM)
With more than 150 major transboundary rivers, over 100 transboundary groundwater
aquifers and around 30 international lakes in the region, their reasonable and equitable use
remains a major challenge, and interstate distribution of water has to be particularly
addressed in EECCA and SEE countries with arid or semi-arid climate .
Priority should be given to the ratification of, and compliance with, the UNECE Water
Convention and its Protocols as well as the bilateral and multilateral agreements . There is a
need for drafting agreements and setting up of joint bodies where they do not yet exist, and
the strengthening of existing international commissions . Capacity building on legal and
regulatory instruments, joint institutions, monitoring and assessment, public participation in
transboundary water management and planning of measures is a further necessity . .
1
Integrated water resources management and planning is still to be promoted as a tool to : (a)
integrate water supply and use with the management of waste and sewage ; (b) ensure local
income to fund operations, maintenance and more efficient use of water; (c) protect the water
basin's ecosystems to protect water quality and maintain safe water supply ; and (d) stipulate
action in other sectors in order to prevent contamination and minimize climate change .
To prevent, control and reduce impacts on groundwaters due to pollution and overuse,
priority should be given to the development and implementation of comprehensive
groundwater protection policies that are not limited to water-production areas and that aim to
preserve the quality of unpolluted aquifers . Restoration of aquifers, rather than abandonment
of aquifers are additional requirements .
Greater emphasis should be given to the protection and sustainable use of water-related
ecosystems, such as forests and wetlands, which capture, filter, store and release water . Thus,
they are important suppliers of water and food and mitigate the effects of floods, droughts
and other natural water-related hazards . Priorities of strategies, policies and actions should
include awareness raising about their functions, dissemination of experience of solidarity
between upstream and downstream communities ; and good practice of protecting and
sustainably using water-related ecosystems by means of innovative economic tools, such as
payments for environmental services through successful public-private partnerships and
public-public partnerships.
A region-wide framework for flood prevention, protection and mitigation is also needed, as
floods are an increasing problem in the entire region . Priority shall be accorded to the
development of appropriate legal instruments as well capacity building for local and national
authorities as well as joint bodies responsible for transboundary water cooperation ;
Although most UNECE countries are well advanced in drawing up and implementing
comprehensive plans for integrated water resources management, further action is needed to
develop IWRM plans on the basis of the whole of a catchment area, whether transboundary
or not, including its associated coastal waters, and across the whole of a groundwater aquifer .
Linking social and economic development to the protection of ecosystems shall be an
additional aim .
Water supply and sanitation
More should be done to significantly lower the proportion of people who do not have access
to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation (an estimated 120 million people or I person in
7). Access to water and sanitation is a key element in the fight against poverty . Governments
need to address these deficiencies and assume responsibility for setting up functioning
regulatory and institutional frameworks, surveillance and response systems and other
measures as stipulated in the Protocol on Water and Health .
Governments should ratify the UNECE/WHO Protocol on Water and Health and the UNECE
Protocol on Civil Liability ; update and effectively enforce health standards and legal and
regulatory frameworks, with meaningful disincentives and fines for violations and discharges .
There is a need for policy action to improve public and private sector participation in
planning and decision-making, including the formation of user groups as well as to raise
awareness of hygienic behaviour and potential health risks to encourage households to invest
in improved sanitation and water supply .
2
Water supply and sanitation is closely related to integrated water resources management and
should not only rely on technical measures . Up-scaling delivery of water-supply services in
urban and rural areas, in line with applicable WHO, EU and UNECE provisions, is a major
challenge in EECCA and SEE : Actions include the completion of the reforms of the water
sector ; effective enforcement of laws by means of increasing regulatory capacity ;
decentralisation of responsibilities and decision-making to the local level ; and the creation of
more favourable conditions to encourage private sector investment to improve service
delivery and resource management, complemented by strengthened local and corporate
governance ;
In the preparation of water efficiency plans, more attention should be given to the inclusion
of targets for action on water and sanitation at local, national and transboundary levels . New
and/or revised water efficiency plans should take better account of different sectoral needs
(water allocation both in the national and transboundary contexts) as well as the urban, periurban
and rural inter-linkages. Increasing attention should be given to management
technologies to conserve water in agriculture ; this should include amending legislation to
encourage the setting-up and capacity-building of irrigation user groups and the more widely
introduction of agro-environmental programmes to minimise water pollution .
Human settlements in the UNECE region: challenges and policy options
For achieving sustainable human settlements, addressing the following challenges has
repeatedly been identified as particularly important by countries of the ECE region :
promoting a system of meaningful and democratic governance that responds to the needs of
local communities; facilitating social cohesion and security ; further implementing marketoriented
reforms in the housing and urban sector; improving urban environmental
performance; improving land and real estate markets and securing private land rights .
Meaningful and democratic governance, based on decentralization ; partnership and inclusion,
is the key to a sustainable housing sector . While decentralization has progressed in the
UNECE region in recent years and local authorities have been made increasingly responsible
for the planning and delivery of urban and housing services, a reduction in public spending
has also occurred especially in countries in transition . In this situation, municipalities have
increasingly turned to the private sector for assistance, often in the absence of a regulatory
framework to monitor the effects of deregulated service delivery .
Governments need to address these deficiencies, and in particular need to :
Assume responsibility for setting up functioning regulatory and institutional
framework conditions in support of participatory local governance and public-private
partnerships, in particular through capacity building within local governments and
community-based institutions ;
Strengthen governance at all levels to ensure proper and efficient use of scarce
resources. This entails ensuring that local governments dispose over sufficient
resources and income-generating capacities ;
Improve the dialogue and understanding between the different levels of administration
as well as among different government institutions to address local government
issues ;
- Empower civil society actors to ensure effective implementation of sustainable
development policies .
In countries in transition mortgage lending takes place only to a very limited extent and the
large scale-privatization of the housing sector in these countries did not result in the
establishment of efficient private management and maintenance systems, in particular for
multi-unit housing .
Governments should in particular :
- Provide favourable conditions for investment in the rehabilitation of the existing
stock; and encourage tenant involvement in managing housing estates ;
Promote competition and increase efficiency in the provision of communal services
by encouraging private sector involvement ;
Create an enabling institutional environment to attract domestic and foreign
investment .
Reforms in the housing sector need to be accompanied by measures facilitating social
cohesion and security . Poverty and the social exclusion of vulnerable population groups has
become a significant social and political challenge throughout the region . The gap between
income and housing prices has continued to increase, making housing less affordable . The
provision of adequate and affordable housing therefore needs to be at the forefront of human
settlements policies within the ECE region . The establishment of a concise social housing
policy should be a key element not only of human settlements strategies but also an integral
part of the overall social polices and the welfare system .
Governments in particular need to :
Realize that social protection of vulnerable groups needs to be a priority aspect of
public policy intervention and that social housing reforms become an integral part of
the wider process of welfare state restructuring ;
Acknowledge that the significance of social housing reforms goes far beyond the
provision of physical housing units and realize their importance for facilitating social
cohesion and equity .
Social vulnerability in the housing sector is frequently caused by the absence of sound land
administration and spatial planning systems . In countries in transition security of tenure is
threatened due to malfunctioning land administration and property markets . Deficiencies in
the land administration system hamper~access to mortgage and impede solutions to the
problem of illegal settlements .
Governments in particular should :
Ensure secure entitlement to land, and freedom from unlawful eviction ;
Empower citizens to transform their assets into working capital by setting up formal
systems for registry and titling of property and dwellings, which would help to
increase access to finance ;
Malfunctioning land administration systems, and the subsequent inadequate planning for and
investment in public infrastructure, are also a major cause for unsustainable transport
patterns, for scarcity of serviced urban land and, ultimately, for unsustainable urban
environmental performance.
Governments need to :
- Recognize the importance of incorporating environmental concerns in the entire
housing sphere including waste' collection and sustainable energy consumption ;
NEW YORK, 28 FEBRUARY 2005 (10 .00-13.00)
Chair's summary, ECE Commission Session,
23 February 2005
Water, sanitation and human settlements in the UNECE region: challenges and policy
options
The Commission examined major policy options for water, sanitation and human settlements
in the UNECE region taking into account the outcome of the Regional Implementation
Meeting in January 2004, the conclusions of the twelfth session of the Commission on
Sustainable Development in April 2004 and the challenges identified by the Parties to the
UNECE Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and
International Lakes (UNECE Water Convention) and by the Committee on Human
Settlements thereafter .
Although there were many specific regional concerns and approaches to improve water and
sanitation, the Commission concluded that lessons learned in the European context might
prove to be valuable for other regions in the world, taking into account similar proportions of
people without access to safe water and sanitation in Europe and at the global scale . Pollution
and overuse of rivers, lakes and groundwaters became also a concern for many developing
countries, which share these waters with other riparian States in transboundary water basins,
too.
The Commission stressed that despite the progress achieved, there was a need for actionoriented
local and national measures as well as regional cooperation to speed up efforts to
meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Johannesburg Plan of Implementation
(JPoI) commitments, particularly in countries in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central
Asia (EECCA) and some South-East European (SEE) countries, which include five among
the fifty poorest countries in the world.
The Commission took note of the Report by the Executive Secretary (E/ECE/1421) and
agreed that the following action on water, sanitation and human settlements were of utmost
priority to countries in the region, in particular the EECCA and SEE countries .
Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM)
With more than 150 major transboundary rivers, over 100 transboundary groundwater
aquifers and around 30 international lakes in the region, their reasonable and equitable use
remains a major challenge, and interstate distribution of water has to be particularly
addressed in EECCA and SEE countries with arid or semi-arid climate .
Priority should be given to the ratification of, and compliance with, the UNECE Water
Convention and its Protocols as well as the bilateral and multilateral agreements . There is a
need for drafting agreements and setting up of joint bodies where they do not yet exist, and
the strengthening of existing international commissions . Capacity building on legal and
regulatory instruments, joint institutions, monitoring and assessment, public participation in
transboundary water management and planning of measures is a further necessity . .
1
Integrated water resources management and planning is still to be promoted as a tool to : (a)
integrate water supply and use with the management of waste and sewage ; (b) ensure local
income to fund operations, maintenance and more efficient use of water; (c) protect the water
basin's ecosystems to protect water quality and maintain safe water supply ; and (d) stipulate
action in other sectors in order to prevent contamination and minimize climate change .
To prevent, control and reduce impacts on groundwaters due to pollution and overuse,
priority should be given to the development and implementation of comprehensive
groundwater protection policies that are not limited to water-production areas and that aim to
preserve the quality of unpolluted aquifers . Restoration of aquifers, rather than abandonment
of aquifers are additional requirements .
Greater emphasis should be given to the protection and sustainable use of water-related
ecosystems, such as forests and wetlands, which capture, filter, store and release water . Thus,
they are important suppliers of water and food and mitigate the effects of floods, droughts
and other natural water-related hazards . Priorities of strategies, policies and actions should
include awareness raising about their functions, dissemination of experience of solidarity
between upstream and downstream communities ; and good practice of protecting and
sustainably using water-related ecosystems by means of innovative economic tools, such as
payments for environmental services through successful public-private partnerships and
public-public partnerships.
A region-wide framework for flood prevention, protection and mitigation is also needed, as
floods are an increasing problem in the entire region . Priority shall be accorded to the
development of appropriate legal instruments as well capacity building for local and national
authorities as well as joint bodies responsible for transboundary water cooperation ;
Although most UNECE countries are well advanced in drawing up and implementing
comprehensive plans for integrated water resources management, further action is needed to
develop IWRM plans on the basis of the whole of a catchment area, whether transboundary
or not, including its associated coastal waters, and across the whole of a groundwater aquifer .
Linking social and economic development to the protection of ecosystems shall be an
additional aim .
Water supply and sanitation
More should be done to significantly lower the proportion of people who do not have access
to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation (an estimated 120 million people or I person in
7). Access to water and sanitation is a key element in the fight against poverty . Governments
need to address these deficiencies and assume responsibility for setting up functioning
regulatory and institutional frameworks, surveillance and response systems and other
measures as stipulated in the Protocol on Water and Health .
Governments should ratify the UNECE/WHO Protocol on Water and Health and the UNECE
Protocol on Civil Liability ; update and effectively enforce health standards and legal and
regulatory frameworks, with meaningful disincentives and fines for violations and discharges .
There is a need for policy action to improve public and private sector participation in
planning and decision-making, including the formation of user groups as well as to raise
awareness of hygienic behaviour and potential health risks to encourage households to invest
in improved sanitation and water supply .
2
Water supply and sanitation is closely related to integrated water resources management and
should not only rely on technical measures . Up-scaling delivery of water-supply services in
urban and rural areas, in line with applicable WHO, EU and UNECE provisions, is a major
challenge in EECCA and SEE : Actions include the completion of the reforms of the water
sector ; effective enforcement of laws by means of increasing regulatory capacity ;
decentralisation of responsibilities and decision-making to the local level ; and the creation of
more favourable conditions to encourage private sector investment to improve service
delivery and resource management, complemented by strengthened local and corporate
governance ;
In the preparation of water efficiency plans, more attention should be given to the inclusion
of targets for action on water and sanitation at local, national and transboundary levels . New
and/or revised water efficiency plans should take better account of different sectoral needs
(water allocation both in the national and transboundary contexts) as well as the urban, periurban
and rural inter-linkages. Increasing attention should be given to management
technologies to conserve water in agriculture ; this should include amending legislation to
encourage the setting-up and capacity-building of irrigation user groups and the more widely
introduction of agro-environmental programmes to minimise water pollution .
Human settlements in the UNECE region: challenges and policy options
For achieving sustainable human settlements, addressing the following challenges has
repeatedly been identified as particularly important by countries of the ECE region :
promoting a system of meaningful and democratic governance that responds to the needs of
local communities; facilitating social cohesion and security ; further implementing marketoriented
reforms in the housing and urban sector; improving urban environmental
performance; improving land and real estate markets and securing private land rights .
Meaningful and democratic governance, based on decentralization ; partnership and inclusion,
is the key to a sustainable housing sector . While decentralization has progressed in the
UNECE region in recent years and local authorities have been made increasingly responsible
for the planning and delivery of urban and housing services, a reduction in public spending
has also occurred especially in countries in transition . In this situation, municipalities have
increasingly turned to the private sector for assistance, often in the absence of a regulatory
framework to monitor the effects of deregulated service delivery .
Governments need to address these deficiencies, and in particular need to :
Assume responsibility for setting up functioning regulatory and institutional
framework conditions in support of participatory local governance and public-private
partnerships, in particular through capacity building within local governments and
community-based institutions ;
Strengthen governance at all levels to ensure proper and efficient use of scarce
resources. This entails ensuring that local governments dispose over sufficient
resources and income-generating capacities ;
Improve the dialogue and understanding between the different levels of administration
as well as among different government institutions to address local government
issues ;
- Empower civil society actors to ensure effective implementation of sustainable
development policies .
In countries in transition mortgage lending takes place only to a very limited extent and the
large scale-privatization of the housing sector in these countries did not result in the
establishment of efficient private management and maintenance systems, in particular for
multi-unit housing .
Governments should in particular :
- Provide favourable conditions for investment in the rehabilitation of the existing
stock; and encourage tenant involvement in managing housing estates ;
Promote competition and increase efficiency in the provision of communal services
by encouraging private sector involvement ;
Create an enabling institutional environment to attract domestic and foreign
investment .
Reforms in the housing sector need to be accompanied by measures facilitating social
cohesion and security . Poverty and the social exclusion of vulnerable population groups has
become a significant social and political challenge throughout the region . The gap between
income and housing prices has continued to increase, making housing less affordable . The
provision of adequate and affordable housing therefore needs to be at the forefront of human
settlements policies within the ECE region . The establishment of a concise social housing
policy should be a key element not only of human settlements strategies but also an integral
part of the overall social polices and the welfare system .
Governments in particular need to :
Realize that social protection of vulnerable groups needs to be a priority aspect of
public policy intervention and that social housing reforms become an integral part of
the wider process of welfare state restructuring ;
Acknowledge that the significance of social housing reforms goes far beyond the
provision of physical housing units and realize their importance for facilitating social
cohesion and equity .
Social vulnerability in the housing sector is frequently caused by the absence of sound land
administration and spatial planning systems . In countries in transition security of tenure is
threatened due to malfunctioning land administration and property markets . Deficiencies in
the land administration system hamper~access to mortgage and impede solutions to the
problem of illegal settlements .
Governments in particular should :
Ensure secure entitlement to land, and freedom from unlawful eviction ;
Empower citizens to transform their assets into working capital by setting up formal
systems for registry and titling of property and dwellings, which would help to
increase access to finance ;
Malfunctioning land administration systems, and the subsequent inadequate planning for and
investment in public infrastructure, are also a major cause for unsustainable transport
patterns, for scarcity of serviced urban land and, ultimately, for unsustainable urban
environmental performance.
Governments need to :
- Recognize the importance of incorporating environmental concerns in the entire
housing sphere including waste' collection and sustainable energy consumption ;
Stakeholders