By Thalif Deen
STOCKHOLM, Aug 22 2005 (IPS)

The statistics are staggering: one person out of every five alive today lacks access to a safe water supply, and two in five do not even have basic sanitation.

And worse still, says the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), some 4,500 children die of diarrhoeal diseases every day, and at any moment, almost half the developing world&#39s population is suffering from one or more diseases linked to poor water and sanitation, or poor water resources management.

Still, says Anders Berntell, executive director of SIWI, a global plan of action due to be approved by some 170 world leaders at the upcoming U.N. summit in mid-September has brushed aside the importance of water in fighting disease and eradicating poverty under the much-ballyhooed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

"In the draft outcome paper that has been presented, a 38-page document, water is mentioned in one tiny bullet point, and what is said there is not new. It only reiterates what has already been said earlier," Berntell told a gathering of over 1,400 water experts and representatives of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) meeting in the Swedish capital for a symposium during "World Water Week" which began Monday.

"It is obvious," he told delegates, "that more advocacy is needed from all of us that are here today."

In the only reference to water, the draft outcome document calls for assistance to developing countries in their efforts to provide access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation for all – "in accordance with the Millennium Declaration (of 2000) and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (of 2002)".

Concurring with Berntell&#39s critical remarks, Sweden&#39s Environment Minister Prof. Lena Sommestad told reporters she was "not happy" either with the outcome document and its passing reference to water.

Asked if the Swedish delegation at the United Nations will make a strong push for higher priority for water, she said it will.

Berntell said that "one of those who will help us with this advocacy" is the incoming president of the 191-member General Assembly, Ambassador Jan Eliasson of Sweden, a former U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs. He is expected to be elected president when the 60th session of the General Assembly opens in mid-September.

In an interview with the New York Times in early August, Eliasson said water is still a luxury for over two billion people in the world.

"I have watched how fresh water is distributed in Somalia, Sudan and Mozambique. I have seen a mother receiving a bottle of water while she has a child on her arm, and witnessed that smile that says she knows that the only alternative is to walk for two or three miles, and then only to get polluted water," he said.

"You can break down figures," Eliasson said, "that show that 300 million people south of the Sahara don&#39t have clean water."

Unfortunately, Berntell told delegates, Eliasson&#39s "insights are apparently not shared by those who have negotiated the draft outcome document for the summit".

"What we need is concrete measures that clearly identify what should be done, by whom and by when," he pointed out. Therefore, water needs to be addressed as part of negotiations, for example, on trade and on agriculture.

The summit should recognise this, and instruct the appropriate international fora on what to do, Berntell said.

"The need for developing countries is to give higher priority to water, and develop concrete programmes to reach the identified water and sanitation targets, as well as the need for industrialised countries to assist, through increased and more efficient development cooperation," he added.

Berntell&#39s remarks came even as U.N. member states were meeting in New York Monday to begin weeklong discussions to revise the outcome document, which has also come under severe criticisms from the 132 developing countries of the Group of 77 and the United States – but for different reasons.

The Group of 77 has criticised the draft outcome document because it does not call for a stronger commitment by rich nations to increase official development assistance, reduce debt burdens of poorer nations and permit quota-free access to third world exports.

The United States wants the new Human Rights Council to shut out non-democratic regimes and wants less emphasis on nuclear disarmament and more on nuclear non-proliferation.

The six day meeting in Stockholm is timed just three weeks in advance of the U.N. summit, scheduled to take place Sep. 14-16.

The Stockholm meeting, the 15th in a series hosted by SIWI, will discuss concrete examples of how problems of poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and gender inequality "can in large measure by solved with water and sanitation as the key entry points."

"It is easy to be sceptical," says SIWI. The eight MDGs represent commitments made by world leaders who expressed their resolve to achieve them.

"With 10 years left to the 2015 deadline, there are fears that at least some of the goals may not be achieved," SIWI warns.

The eight MDGs include a 50 percent reduction in poverty and hunger; universal primary education; reduction of child mortality by two-thirds; cutbacks in maternal mortality by three-quarters; the promotion of gender equality; the reversal of the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; environmental sustainability, including access to safe drinking water; and a North-South global partnership for development.

A summit meeting of 189 world leaders in September 2000 pledged to meet all of these goals by the year 2015.

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