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Water
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Germany’s involvement in international initiatives
Water is at the top of the international community's development agenda. Germany is involved in a large number of international initiatives aimed at bringing about improvements in the water sector.
International Conference on Freshwater
In 2001 the German government convened the International Conference on Freshwater in Bonn. German development cooperation is guided by the key Recommendations for Action drawn up at the conference and by the five "Bonn Keys" that were identified by the conference as priorities for the water sector.
The first key is to meet the water security needs of the poor. The second is concerned with decentralisation. The third key deals with the creation of new partnerships involving all stakeholders in the water sector and the fourth with long-term harmony with nature and other users through cooperative arrangements at water basin level, across national boundaries if necessary. The fifth and final key calls for an improved political and legal framework and improved governance.
The Water Decade – Water for Life
The United Nations has proclaimed 2005 to 2015 as the International Decade for Action – Water for Life. The BMZ is supporting this by promoting the activities of UN Water. In 2007 the office of the UN Water Decade Programme on Capacity Development (UNW-DPC) on the campus of the United Nations in Bonn commenced its work with the support of the BMZ and the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research. Its task is to coordinate and strengthen the various capacity development activities and programmes.
World Water Council and World Water Forum
A World Water Forum, organised by the World Water Council, takes place every three years and addresses issues relating to worldwide water provision and water management. Germany is represented at the World Water Council by the GIZ. Within the Council, it works with international representatives of politics, science and business to promote the protection and sustainable use of water resources.
The fifth World Water Forum met in March 2009 in Istanbul and had as its theme "Bridging Divides for Water". The focus was on global challenges such as climate change and water for food. Issues such as population trends, energy, water supply and sanitation, protection of water resources, funding, awareness-raising and knowledge transfer were also discussed by the participants, who numbered more than 20,000.
Marseilles will host the next World Water Forum in 2012.
Annual World Water Week in Stockholm
The World Water Week in Stockholm is the leading international forum on water and development. Since 1991, experts from all over the world have been meeting annually in the Swedish capital to discuss the environmentally-friendly use of water resources; since 2005 the event has borne the title World Water Week.
The Stockholm World Water Week has become one of the most important international discussion fora for development policy in the water sector. Its theme in 2009 was "Responding to Global Changes: Accessing Water for the Common Good". The theme for 2010 is "The Water Quality Challenge – Prevention, Wise Use and Abatement".
European Union Water Initiative (EUWI)
Germany is involved in the European Union Water Initiative (EUWI), a policy forum in which donor activities are coordinated. From 2005 to 2007 Germany was a member of the steering group and in 2006 it chaired the EUWI Africa Working Group.
EU-ACP Water Facility
A financing instrument aimed at mobilising additional resources for the water sector is the Water Facility for the African, Caribbean and Pacific states (ACP states). It offers grants to new projects and supports the development of partnerships between the public sector and private initiatives. In the first phase, from 2005 to 2007, 500 million euros were invested in water projects through the scheme. Germany contributed 117 million euros to this. Two hundred million euros are being made available to the Water Facility through the 10th European Development Fund.
World Commission on Dams (WCD)
The BMZ has promoted the work of the World Commission on Dams (WCD). German development cooperation adheres to the recommendations of the WCD’s final report "Dams and Development", published in 2000.
The WCD was dissolved after publication of its final report. On the basis of its recommendations another fixed-term programme, the Dams and Development Project (DDP), was set up under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The DDP’s aims included ensuring that environmental issues associated with the construction and operation of dams are addressed. Germany also supported the DDP financially.
Group of Eight (G8)
The German government is involved in implementing the G8 Water Action Plan and the G8 Africa Action Plan. A special Water Action Plan was added to the Africa Action Plan in 2003 in Evian, France. The Water Action Plan contains a list of specific measures; its objective is the sustainable provision of sufficient water for all sectors in the African countries.
Germany has taken on the lead role in the area of transboundary water resource management. Support is offered to African institutions to enable them to improve cooperation in connection with the use of transboundary water resources. The political partner of the German G8 initiative is the African Ministers' Council on Water (AMCOW).
The Japanese G8 presidency in 2008 again put the issue of water on the agenda. The summit declaration underscored the necessity of integrated water resources management. Notably, basic sanitation provision was for the first time accorded the same importance as the issue of potable water.
Under the Italian presidency in 2009 water has again been a key topic. At the G8 summit in L’Aquila in July 2009, the G8 and their African partners issued a joint statement on strengthening the Africa-G8 partnership on water and sanitation. Germany, as the largest bilateral donor in the water sector in Africa, had been campaigning for such a partnership-based approach.
Petersberg Process
The Petersberg Process on transboundary water management is a joint initiative of the German government and the World Bank. As part of this process, international dialogue fora on transboundary water cooperation have been taking place since 1998. In September 2007 the sixth Petersberg Round Table on Transboundary Water Management took place in Africa, organised by the BMZ in cooperation with the African Ministers' Council on Water, the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility (GEF).
Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for water supply and sanitation
The German government supports the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for water supply and sanitation, which was set up by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). The aim of the JMP is to monitor and report on the state of water and sanitation services worldwide. The JMP programme collects the only internationally available data on access to water and sanitation services – data that enables attainment of the Millennium Development Goals in the water sector to be evaluated.
International Year of Sanitation 2008
The German government actively campaigned for the United Nations to declare 2008 the International Year of Sanitation.
The International Year of Sanitation achieved something very important: never before has the importance of sanitation for sustainable development, health and human dignity been the subject of so much international debate at all levels. The issue was on the agenda at the highest political level – at the G8 summit in Japan and the summit of the African Union in Sharm El-Sheik. At the AfricaSan conference in February 2008, 32 African ministers signed the eThekwini Declaration in which they undertook to place sanitation on the political agenda, develop national strategies, clarify the roles and responsibilities of the various institutions involved and provide more funds from their own resources. Other conferences took place in Asia and Latin America with equally high-level representatives.
Another outcome of the International Year of Sanitation was a significant improvement in the statistical information on which policy decisions are based, brought about by the OECD’s decision to record expenditure on sanitation separately from that on drinking water. In addition the dialogue in Germany, the public relations work and the cooperation with non-governmental organisations have helped lift the taboo on the subject of sanitation.
As a contribution to the International Year of Sanitation the German government also supported the founding of SuSanA (Sustainable Sanitation Alliance). More than 100 international organisations, non-governmental organisations, universities and companies that are promoting the rapid dissemination of sustainable sanitation services are members of this network.
Global Water Partnership (GWP)
Germany supports the Global Water Partnership (GWP) with ideas and financing. The GWP is an international network of government representatives, UN bodies, development banks, research institutions, non-governmental organisations and private institutions. It pursues the principle of sustainable development within the water sector. The GWP plays a leading role in the development of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and promotes implementation of this approach.
Water Integrity Network (WIN)
It is estimated that between 30 and 40 per cent of the water sector's resources worldwide are lost through corruption. In August 2006 the Water Integrity Network (WIN) was set up to tackle corruption in the water sector and reduce poverty. WIN was actively involved in the production of Transparency International's Global Corruption Report 2008, which dealt with corruption in the water sector.
The WIN secretariat is managed by Transparency International in Berlin and funded by the BMZ in partnership with the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland.
Information
External links
- International Decade
for Action: Water for Life, 2005–2010 - UN Water
- World Water Council
- World Water Week
- World Water Forum
- European Water Initiative
- African Ministerial
Conference on Water - Joint Monitoring Programme for water supply and sanitation
- International Year
of Sanitation - Global Water Partnership
- Water Integrity Network
