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| Sunday, 1 February 2004 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Giving a ray of hope, to the poor that their dream of getting pure water is not a 'dream' anymore, the third 'Water Week' of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) concluded last Friday setting practical goals and priorities for providing better water access to the poor. More than 350 experts in the water sector across Asia and the Pacific regions attended the Week held in Manila, Philippines from January 26 to 30. Some of the key priorities that the experts highlighted are decentralizing of funding to local communities and Non Governmental Organisations in a demand-led manner, ADB to prioritise action research and scale up successful pilot programs to improve project design and incorporate them within the institutional structures and a greater focus on incremental actions at a local level. "Pure water will not be a dream of the poor. But it needs the efforts of all involved parties. This applies not just to governments in the North and South but also to towns, regions, NGOs, communities and civil society," Michel Camdessus, former Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said at the opening of the week. According to him, one out of three people, especially in the Asian and Pacific regions, do not have access to safe drinking water and one in two lack basic sanitation facilities. "The root cause of this problem is the negligence of mankind and our resignation in the face of inequality. Water is one of the world's worst injustices, because it is above all an injustice to women, which is why it is largely unspoken, and one of the most difficult to correct," he pointed out. |
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