The World Summit on Sustainable Development, held in Johannesburg Aug 26 to Sep 4, was the environmental event of the year, though many left the event disappointed… Except on the water issue, which will be the star of a United Nations-sponsored International Year in 2003.

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The mega-conference generated high expectations around the globe, drawing the greatest number of heads of state (104) and official and non-governmental representatives (20,000), costing more than any meeting of this type (55 million dollars) and causing a great deal of waste and contamination (331 tons of garbage and an estimated 290,000 tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide).

Everything was big in Johannesburg, except for the Summit’s concrete outcomes. Of the Summit’s five themes – water, energy, public health, biodiversity and agriculture – consensus was achieved on just one: the 190 countries participating in the meet agreed to reduce by half the world population that lacks access to clean water and to sewage systems by 2015.

Although there were other accords with deadlines and timeframes, those related to water are the most significant because of the effect they could have on the daily lives of citizens around the world. Today, nearly 1.1 billion people – more than a sixth of the population – do not have adequate access to potable water, says the United Nations.

Amid the hissing and shouts of “Betrayal!”, some environmental groups called the conference, which met Aug 26 to Sep 4, the “Summit of Shameful Deals”.

The activists were particularly irked by the lack of an accord on proposals for clean energy, which were rejected outright by a bloc of countries led by the United States. U.S. President George W. Bush was a notable absence in South Africa, but from Washington opposed any quantifiable commitment on clean energy and upheld his refusal to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which seeks to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

“The North American oil industry held the Summit hostage,” said critics.

But the environmentalists dedicated to the water issue claimed victory and got down to work preparing for 2003, International Year of Freshwater.

The world must work to make this the century of peace, not a century of war over water, says Koïchiro Matsuura, director-general of UNESCO, one of the 23 UN agencies involved in promoting universal access to this essential resource.

The 3rd World Water Forum is slated for Mar 16-23, in Kyoto, Japan, no less. It is crucial that this and other crusades for water are successful, if only for one reason: to prevent the deaths of 6,000 children each day related to preventable illnesses – like cholera and diarrhea – arising from the lack of clean water.