Ecobreves – REGIONAL: Water for the Americas

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

MEXICO CITY, May 19 2002 (IPS) - Experts, business leaders and environment ministers from throughout the Americas are to meet Oct 8-11 in Mexico to draw up and adopt strategies for distributing and conserving the region's freshwater supplies. The meeting is also intended to formulate the position of the Americas in the run-up to the 3rd World Water Forum, to take place in Japan in 2003.

The forum is to draft measures for preventing the waste and contamination of water resources, the scarcity of which could trigger social and political conflicts, says Mexico's National Water Commission.

Eighty percent of the population of the Americas has access to potable water, but the figures vary dramatically, from 91 percent in North America to 68 percent in Central America, according to the Pan-American Health Organization.

An estimated 1.4 billion people worldwide do not have adequate access to potable water, and 3.4 million people die each year from drinking contaminated water