WHO
WORLD H L H ORGANIZATION
Statement to the
12th Session of the Commission on Sustainable Development
29 April 2004
Assistant Director-General
for Sustainable Development and Healthy Environments
Dr Kerstin Leitner
Check against Delivery
1
SPEECH WHO CSD 12
Ladies and gentlemen
The connection between poverty, access to safe drinking water, adequate sanitation,
and public health has been the historic starting point and is a continuing source of
inspiration for health policy frameworks for the last 200 years .
All societies have in common the need for effective water management as a key
defining component of public administration and governing structures .
Given this historical background, the elusiveness of achieving the drinking water and
sanitation targets under MDG 7, is an astonishing reality . It is even more so when we
consider that achieving the MDG 7 targets by 2015 will leave a large part of humanity
still without adequate services to these basic necessities of human life . Ultimately,
this means a situation where ill health associated with lack of access to safe water and
improved sanitation will continue to burden numerous commas ties and households .
This situation will seriously limit the potential of millions of people to lead an
economically productive and socially fulfilling life .
Today we are more than three years into the 15 year time horizon that Heads of State
and Government established in 2000 for reaching the MDG water and sanitation
targets . And our lack of progress, especially in the field of sanitation, is a matter of
concern.
1
We know where we were : the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme estimated
that in 2000 some 2 .4 billion people on this planet had no access to adequate
sanitation . And we know where we want to be : by 2015, access will have to be
sustainably secured for an additional 1 .9 billion people . By achieving that figure. we
will have halved the proportion of people without access .
So: where are the bottlenecks we are facing and what can we do better to overcome
them ? And: why do we continue to have such problems in coming to grips with
policies, strategies and programmes to close the gap between needs and our response
to those needs
In response to these questions, we must apply lessons learned from the least .
(1) We know fro -n the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade of
the 1980s that where water supply and sanitation go hand in hand, sanitation loses
out. For sure, water supply and sanitation are two sides of the same coin . But
where both are dealt with under the same strategy and programme, attention and
resources tend to get absorbed by water management issues, at the detriment of
attention and resources for sanitation. Also, from a pragmatic perspective, the
provision of access to safe drinking water requires quite different approaches from
those required for inmh .oving access to adequate sanitation . This clear
differentiation of water supply and sanitation policies and strategies at the
progra mlatic level is therefore an important step, obviously without disrupting
1
coordinating mechanisms of time-proven value . Differentiation will also
recognise the growing importance of Integrated Water Resources Management
and the fact that it has ushered drinking water supply into a new arena .
Increasingly, competition for ever scarcer water resources of good quality will
drive decision making over safe drinking water supply . Pollution of water is a
global threat and one that translates into high health risk levels, especially for
children .
(2) we know that national policy and legislative frameworks are critical to provide the
enabling environmment for water and sanitation investments and operations . Yet,
action invariably takes place at the local and household level . Policies and
legislation must, therefore, foster mechanisms for local action and adaptive
management. This is one of the weak links in the sequence of policy-strategyaction-
outcome continuum . The most vulnerable groups, children under five and
women, stand to gain most .
In the years to come, ladies and gentlemen, we will need a concerted effort which
combines advocacy at the local level, school and home-based hygiene education,
affordable options and enforceable regulations to manage the provision of drinking
water and the safe disposal of human excreta and waste . Incentives for innovation
through further technology development, where solutions are evasive will be
indispensable. The partnering of public and private sector institutions will be critical
i.n niobil.ising sufficient resources to actually achieve the goals which were set in
'2'000,
1
While we have become more comfortable with public private partnership activities,
we have, as yet to discover the essential characteristics of successful partnership
formulas for innovation which will produce the needed rapid scaling up . Synergies,
economies of scale and distributing responsibilities according to comparative
advantages are all aspects of this concerted effort . It will require the acceptance of
indicators that reflect not only trends in access, but also help compare health effects of
different approaches and compliance with best practice .
I would like to re-iterate to you here WHO's firm commitment to step up, in close
collaboration with our sister UN-agency UNICEF and other partners, our efforts in
monitoring through the Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and
Sanitation . More then before, this inter-agency collaboration will include intensified
1
capacity building for better monitoring by Member Siates themselves . There will also
be a further expansion of the health economics studies of various intervention options .
WHO is keen to support such initiatives as part of the ten-agency Dialogue on Water
for Food and the Environment. We are interested in ensuring that cross-cutting health
issues are properly weighted at all times . The complexities are great, and only a local
focus can find optimal solutions .
Ladies and gentlemen, our world today is faced with many threats . For billions of
under-privileged, the threats of poverty and ill health are ever present . Much greater
control over the environmental determinants of this ill health remains an urgent
challenge and one that we in WHO join with you today in working to achieve .
Thank you ioc your attention .
Statement to the
12th Session of the Commission on Sustainable Development
29 April 2004
Assistant Director-General
for Sustainable Development and Healthy Environments
Dr Kerstin Leitner
Check against Delivery
1
SPEECH WHO CSD 12
Ladies and gentlemen
The connection between poverty, access to safe drinking water, adequate sanitation,
and public health has been the historic starting point and is a continuing source of
inspiration for health policy frameworks for the last 200 years .
All societies have in common the need for effective water management as a key
defining component of public administration and governing structures .
Given this historical background, the elusiveness of achieving the drinking water and
sanitation targets under MDG 7, is an astonishing reality . It is even more so when we
consider that achieving the MDG 7 targets by 2015 will leave a large part of humanity
still without adequate services to these basic necessities of human life . Ultimately,
this means a situation where ill health associated with lack of access to safe water and
improved sanitation will continue to burden numerous commas ties and households .
This situation will seriously limit the potential of millions of people to lead an
economically productive and socially fulfilling life .
Today we are more than three years into the 15 year time horizon that Heads of State
and Government established in 2000 for reaching the MDG water and sanitation
targets . And our lack of progress, especially in the field of sanitation, is a matter of
concern.
1
We know where we were : the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme estimated
that in 2000 some 2 .4 billion people on this planet had no access to adequate
sanitation . And we know where we want to be : by 2015, access will have to be
sustainably secured for an additional 1 .9 billion people . By achieving that figure. we
will have halved the proportion of people without access .
So: where are the bottlenecks we are facing and what can we do better to overcome
them ? And: why do we continue to have such problems in coming to grips with
policies, strategies and programmes to close the gap between needs and our response
to those needs
In response to these questions, we must apply lessons learned from the least .
(1) We know fro -n the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade of
the 1980s that where water supply and sanitation go hand in hand, sanitation loses
out. For sure, water supply and sanitation are two sides of the same coin . But
where both are dealt with under the same strategy and programme, attention and
resources tend to get absorbed by water management issues, at the detriment of
attention and resources for sanitation. Also, from a pragmatic perspective, the
provision of access to safe drinking water requires quite different approaches from
those required for inmh .oving access to adequate sanitation . This clear
differentiation of water supply and sanitation policies and strategies at the
progra mlatic level is therefore an important step, obviously without disrupting
1
coordinating mechanisms of time-proven value . Differentiation will also
recognise the growing importance of Integrated Water Resources Management
and the fact that it has ushered drinking water supply into a new arena .
Increasingly, competition for ever scarcer water resources of good quality will
drive decision making over safe drinking water supply . Pollution of water is a
global threat and one that translates into high health risk levels, especially for
children .
(2) we know that national policy and legislative frameworks are critical to provide the
enabling environmment for water and sanitation investments and operations . Yet,
action invariably takes place at the local and household level . Policies and
legislation must, therefore, foster mechanisms for local action and adaptive
management. This is one of the weak links in the sequence of policy-strategyaction-
outcome continuum . The most vulnerable groups, children under five and
women, stand to gain most .
In the years to come, ladies and gentlemen, we will need a concerted effort which
combines advocacy at the local level, school and home-based hygiene education,
affordable options and enforceable regulations to manage the provision of drinking
water and the safe disposal of human excreta and waste . Incentives for innovation
through further technology development, where solutions are evasive will be
indispensable. The partnering of public and private sector institutions will be critical
i.n niobil.ising sufficient resources to actually achieve the goals which were set in
'2'000,
1
While we have become more comfortable with public private partnership activities,
we have, as yet to discover the essential characteristics of successful partnership
formulas for innovation which will produce the needed rapid scaling up . Synergies,
economies of scale and distributing responsibilities according to comparative
advantages are all aspects of this concerted effort . It will require the acceptance of
indicators that reflect not only trends in access, but also help compare health effects of
different approaches and compliance with best practice .
I would like to re-iterate to you here WHO's firm commitment to step up, in close
collaboration with our sister UN-agency UNICEF and other partners, our efforts in
monitoring through the Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and
Sanitation . More then before, this inter-agency collaboration will include intensified
1
capacity building for better monitoring by Member Siates themselves . There will also
be a further expansion of the health economics studies of various intervention options .
WHO is keen to support such initiatives as part of the ten-agency Dialogue on Water
for Food and the Environment. We are interested in ensuring that cross-cutting health
issues are properly weighted at all times . The complexities are great, and only a local
focus can find optimal solutions .
Ladies and gentlemen, our world today is faced with many threats . For billions of
under-privileged, the threats of poverty and ill health are ever present . Much greater
control over the environmental determinants of this ill health remains an urgent
challenge and one that we in WHO join with you today in working to achieve .
Thank you ioc your attention .
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