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Towards the World Summit on Sustainable Development:
The International Conference on Freshwater
The "water world" and water policies after Johannesburg cannot be characterised appropriately without analysing the outcomes of major events shaping the "water world" and influencing the spirit and outcomes of the summit in Johannesburg. Without doubt, international conferences with a clear focus on water show the prevailing trends and describe the state and mentality of the "water world" more clearly than a global event, such as the WSSD. Therefore, it is warranted to highlight the outcomes of the most recent water conference, that of the International Conference on Freshwater, held in Bonn in December 2001, preceding by a mere 8 months the Johannesburg Summit. In this paper, only two outcomes of the Bonn Conference, the "Recommendations for Action" and the "Bonn Keys" will be analysed. Bonn’s motto: "Water – key to Sustainable Development" clearly describes its aim: to prepare "water-wise" the WSSD to provide a "key" to open the "lock" in Johannesburg.
Recommendations for Action
The "Recommendations for Action", while politically "lower traded" than the Ministerial Declaration, is still a negotiated text. On 13 pages covering 27 points, it diagnoses the "water world" and prescribes the "medicine". Due to the nature of a negotiated text, the "Recommendations" contains several general statements. Yet careful reading enables the subtle order of priorities to be found. The following citation is an excellent example to prove it:
"Water is a key to sustainable development, crucial to its social, economic and environmental dimensions. Water is life, essential for human health. Water is an economic and a social good and should be allocated first to satisfy basic human needs. Many people regard access to drinking water and sanitation to be a human right. There is no substitute for water: without it, humans and other living organisms die, farmers cannot grow food, businesses cannot operate. Providing water security is a key dimension of poverty reduction."
While these are not in contradiction to the Ministerial Declaration of The Hague, the Bonn Conference achieved an additional step, to focus on priority actions grouped under three headings:
- Governance
- Mobilising financial resources
- Capacity-building and sharing knowledge
Furthermore, it identified specific roles for the most crucial stakeholder groups represented in the conference.
The above three main groups as priority actions reveal implicitly that we are very much at the beginning of the long process to secure a sustainable "water world". The framework of this paper does not allow a line-by-line analysis of the text. In fact, this should be reserved for a later scientific review of the evolving "water world" at the change of the millennium. Rather, the attempt is made to highlight the document on the basis of the "macro-level" of 21 recommended actions in the three groups and the list of the 6 stakeholder groups present.
Actions in Field of Governance
1. Secure equitable access to water for all people
2. Ensure that water infrastructure and services deliver to poor people
3. Promote gender equity
4. Appropriately allocate water among competing demands
5. Share benefits
6. Promote participatory sharing of benefits from large projects
7. Improve water management
8. Protect water quality and ecosystems
9. Manage risks to cope with variability and climate change
10. Encourage more efficient service provision
11. Manage water at the lowest appropriate level
12. Combat corruption effectively
Actions in the Field of Mobilising Financial Resources
13. Ensure significant increase in all types of funding
14. Strengthen public funding capabilities
15. Improve economic efficiency to sustain operations and investment
16. Make water attractive for private investment
17. Increase development assistance to water
Actions in the Field of Capacity-Building and Sharing Knowledge
18. Focus education and training on water wisdom
19. Focus research and information management on problem solving
20. Make water institutions more effective
21. Share knowledge and innovative technologies
Roles
22. Governments
23. Local Communities
24. Workers and Trade Unions
25. Non-Governmental Organisations
26. The Private Sector
27. The International Community
This simple list of 21 actions (to be pursued by the 6 stakeholder groups), reveals a lot of important features.
- In the group of governance-relevant actions:
- Some actions, while obviously important as far as water management is concerned, are much for far-reaching than the "water world" alone. Actions 3 and 12 but also 5 and 6 belong to this sub-group.
- Some actions target the translation of ethical principles into management practices, like Actions 1 and 2, while Action 11 transposes the principle of subsidiarity into water resources management.
- - The remaining Actions: 4, 7, 8, 9 and 10 seem to be the ones focussing on the "how to manage what" issues.
- In the group of finance-relevant actions, the proposed actions indicate the need for activities on all fronts. This reveals a certain lack of strategy and in-depth analysis of real opportunities on how to raise the necessary financial means. (Important to note in this respect that, since then, the World Water Council (WWC) and the Global Water Partnership (GWP) convened jointly a high level Finance Panel addressing these issues and preparing a focused strategy for the 3rd WWF in Kyoto).
- In the group of actions relating to capacity-building, the four proposed actions are well-focused, covering a wide range from ethical imperatives, institutional changes through research reorientation to the human dimension. Being the least politicised of the three groups, the actions proposed reflect a professional concern and readiness to act. It has to be emphasised that the prominent place given to capacity-building and knowledge sharing in the Recommendations for Action underlines the acknowledged interlinkage. Improved financial provisions alone would not solve the problems without creating the broad knowledge base and institutional frameworks. Without knowledge and wisdom, the best governance model would fail.
In the light of this well-balanced list of actions, the more astonishing is to review the six classes of stakeholders and their assigned roles. It is fair to say that representation of the community of water professionals and that of the respective scientific communities would have been warranted, in particular with regard to actions referring to research, knowledge base and education. It is worth noting in this regard that IWALC (the International Water Associations Liaison Committee) is actively rectifying this lack of professional presence as a stakeholder group at the 3rd WWF.
The Bonn Keys
Next to the Recommendations for Action the five "Bonn Keys" represent a very well-condensed message from the International Conference on Freshwater (Bonn, December 2001).
- Table 2. The Five "Bonn Keys"
- To meet the water security needs of the poor
- Decentralisation: the local level where national policy meets community needs
- The key to better water outreach is new partnerships
- The key to long-term harmony with nature and neighbour is cooperative arrangements at the water basin level, including across water that touches many shores
- The essential key is stronger, better performing governance arrangements
From an ethical imperative (Key 1) to the embedding of water resources management into the overall responsibility of governments – and society as a whole – in Key 5, to create the effective legal and regulatory framework within which better water governance can be developed, the five keys cover a wide range of issues. These five keys – as presented by the facilitator of the conference, Margaret Catley-Carlson, Chairperson of the Global Water Partnership (GWP), are an excellent example of a combined conference summary, political manifesto and strategic programme in a nutshell.
Next to its strong ethical content, Key 1 refers to the looming vulnerability of the social fabric and the risk of irreparable environmental damages should the plea of the poor remain unanswered. Key 1 is also the link between the Millennium Development Goals on access to safe drinking water - and the commitment of WSSD to extend it by also halving the number of those without adequate sanitation.
Key 2 could be called the "battle cry" for a practical application of the principle of subsidiarity. It implies also that no policy (at national or global scale) can be effective unless addressing the "scale issue"; how to translate ideas and ideals to actions at "human scale". Key 2 is thus not only valid for water resources, but also for the management of other resources and for the administration of human society in general.
Key 3 is again a link towards Johannesburg. The "spirit of partnership"; the endorsement of the so-called "Type 2" partnerships at the WSSD has one of its roots in this statement of the Bonn Conference.
Key 4 links the ethical principle of good neighbourly behaviour, the practical necessity of arrangements over shared water resources with integrated water resources management as a practical framework. What is spelled out here for river basins must hold also for shared aquifers. The ideas expressed in Key 4 are germinating. In November 2002, in Thonon-les-Bains, France international river basin organisations will meet in an assembly to form their own network within INBO, the International Network of Basin Organisations.
Key 5 is a strong political appeal to the governments. It is rightly called the "essential" key. It implicitly admits that the good intentions, principles, approaches and methods specified in keys 1-4 can only be effective if an enabling "political climate" prevails. In this respect, the WSSD with its broad scope on sustainable development is more relevant than the water-focussed International Conference on Freshwater in Bonn. How far the WSSD improved this "climate" can only be judged once the "political seeds" sown in Johannesburg grow into "plants" of legal framework, regulations, institutions and human capacities enabling the realisation of the substance of keys 1-4. In fact, this key claims a global cultural adaptation with regard to water.
The Bonn Conference was convened in December 2001 with the claim of its organisers that it would be a link between the 2nd WWF and the WSSD. Legally, it was not recognised as part of the official inter-governmental preparatory process towards Johannesburg. Back in December 2001, it was to be seen whether, and what, would be the impact of "Bonn on Johannesburg". After less than one year the influence of the Bonn Conference on the "water world" and on the outcomes of the WSSD can be well-documented. It is an analytical recognition of a job "well done".
A very subtle prioritisation, which as well as being found in the WSSD declarations and objectives can also be traced back to Bonn. The last lines of the "Bonn Keys" read as follows:
"Water is essential to our health, our spiritual needs, our comfort, our livelihoods and our ecosystems. Yet, everywhere, water quality is declining and the water stress on humanity and our ecosystems increases. More and more people live in very fragile environments. The reality of floods and droughts touches increasing numbers and many live with scarcity. We are convinced that we can act, and we must. We have the keys."
This human-centred view can also be found in the WSSD declarations. It is a clear statement that sustainable human existence requires a sustainable environment without putting the cart before the horse.
