The task of providing fresh water to all people in the world is becoming ever more challenging, says the United Nations, and nations must plan now how they will manage water resources efficiently – possibly at a greater cost.

Member governments began a two-week annual meeting of the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) Monday by drawing attention to the one billion people worldwide who still lack adequate supplies of clean drinking water.

An estimated two billion people do not have access to water for proper sanitation, the World Health Organisation (WHO) adds. With some 900 million people affected by diarrhoea each year and an equal number suffering from diseases caused by roundworms, unclean water ranks at the top of the world’s pollution problems, U.N. officials contend.

One recent study by the United Nations and Stockhold Environment Institute warned that, unless major action is taken, two-thirds of the world’s people will live in countries facing severe water problems by the year 2025.

“We must ensure adequate drinking water for everyone in the world,” argued Cielito Habito, secretary of socio-economic planning for the Philippines and the chair of the current CSD session. To accomplish that goal, he said, “we have to make sure that the cost of providing water is fully borne by someone.”

At a time when the CSD is seeking to include the business world more closely in its work – such as by bringing corporate heads and U.N. officials together for an Apr. 29 luncheon meeting on environmental codes of conduct – at least some experts believe that more accurate pricing for water should be put on the table.

A recent survey of water projects by the World Bank contended that the average price charged for water only accounted for one- third of the cost of supplying it. The rest of the cost is subsidised by governments – not always to the advantage of the poorest groups, some experts argue.

“The poor have to pay, as everyone does, for water – but they have to pay through higher prices from water vendors,” claimed Ande de Moor, an expert at the Public Expenditures Research Institute who has studied the environmental effects of subsidies.

“The rich people and the better-off are connected to the (water) systems,” while utility companies and governments often neglect the poorest groups from connection to water supplies, de Moor told IPS. Removing ‘hidden’ subsidies on water by adopting fairer water pricing could go a long way in helping to ensure that everyone can receive potable water, he said.

This approach, however, has its own problems, Habito warned.

“Those who have the least access to water also have the least capability to pay,” he said. Consequently, he argued, some form of subsidies targeted at benefitting the poorest groups must remain in place so that the price of water does not place it outside their reach.

Habito said it was crucial that, as water pricing is phased in, a selective use of subsidies will remain in place, with the proviso that “the kinds of subsidies that we see will only be limited to those truly in need.”

Other efforts are being made to ensure that freshwater management will improve, Habito added. Last month, he noted, government ministers met for a three-day conference on management issues in Paris that in turn followed a January meeting of some 200 water experts in Harare, and a March forum in Bonn on better sharing of water across national borders.

Delegates at the CSD session not only will discuss water pricing and better provision for the poor, but also will look for ways to mobilise resources and financing for water programmes worldwide and to assess freshwater supplies accurately.

Basic water needs will require between 60 billion and 80 billion dollars in external financing to be met over the next decade, the World Bank said at the Paris meeting. The Bank said it is prepared to meet half that cost and U.N. officials say the the remaining half likely will be borne either by governments or users themselves.

Delegates at the CSD session are expected to agree on whether to ask the United Nations to draw up an International Implementation Programme, which would identify a time-frame for coordination among U.N. and lending bodies on water management issues and financing. That programme would then be considered by the CSD two years from now.

Many government officials, however, remain wary of the politically unpopular – and potentially destabilising – task of raising water costs worldwide, and some of the delegates arriving for the CSD session cautioned that the topic may prove difficult to resolve for now.