INTERNATIONAL DECADE FOR ACTION
WATER AND ENERGY RELIEF INTERNATIONAL
REMEMBER The Message of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on
World Water Day.
“Access to safe water is a fundamental human need and, therefore, a basic human right. Contaminated water jeopardizes both the physical and social health of all people. It is an affront to human dignity. Yet even today, clean water is a luxury that remains out of the reach of many. World-wide, more than a billion people have no access to improved water sources, while nearly two and a half billion live without basic sanitation. These people rank among the poorest in the world — as well as the least healthy. In fact, the absence of a safe water supply contributes to an estimated 80 per cent of disease and death in the developing world.
World Water Day reminds us to think of water in global terms, and to support global initiatives to give all people everywhere access to safe water. Last year, the Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) announced the inauguration of a World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP). Now adopted by the United Nations as a systemwide programme, the WWAP brings worldwide attention to the critical, but often overlooked, role of water within human development.
In this new century, water, its sanitation, and its equitable distribution pose great social challenges for our world. We need to safeguard the global supply of healthy water and to ensure that everyone has access to it.Please join us and let us renew our commitment to clean, safe, and healthy water for all people.”
The United Nations officially launched the International Year of Sanitation to accelerate progress for 2.6 billion people world wide who are without proper sanitation facilities. Every year inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene contribute to the deaths of 1.5 million children. “Access to sanitation is deeply connected to virtually all the Millennium Development Goals, in particular those involving the environment, education, gender equality and the reduction of child mortality and poverty,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. “An estimated 42,000 people die every week from diseases related to low water quality and an absence of adequate sanitation. This situation is unacceptable.” The International Year of Sanitation, 2008, is a theme year set by the UN General Assembly in December 2006 to help put this global crisis at the forefront of the international agenda.
- UN MILLENIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
- CLINTON CLOBLAL INITIATIVE
- Australian for UNHCR
- Gobal Business Coalition
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Russian Federation
- USA FOR UNHCR
- UNESCO WWAP
- WORLD WATER FORUM ISTANBUL
This UN-wide programme seeks to develop the tools and skills needed to achieve a better understanding of those basic processes, management practices and policies that will help improve the supply and quality of global freshwater resources. The United Nations system is complex. It is not easy to explain what each agency and programme does, since each one has its own priorities and procedures. Nevertheless, all of the organizations listed below have endorsed the goals of the World Water Assessment Programme and the publication of the biennial World Water Development Report. Under this common banner they have agreed to work together – sharing information, knowledge and know-how – to improve our understanding of the policies and practices that encourage sustainable use of water resources.
To help you find your way through this complex worldwide effort, we have tried to summarize some of the main water-related activities of each partner agency, as well as the list of the WWAP challenges to which it is most closely allied.
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In Memories of Nadiejda Dian Parmionova Michaelovna
20 March 1947 -04 Septembre 2001