UNESCO and (Re)sources team up for roundtable on “Global Changes: New Challenges in Access to Water and Sanitation?”

The roundtable on “Global Changes: New Challenges in Access to Water and Sanitation?”, jointly organized by UNESCO’s International Hydrological Programme and the think tank (Re)sources, will be held at the UNESCO Headquarters on 10 September 2008. The Roundtable will bring together distinguished speakers from international organizations, policy makers, academia, and water industry leaders from different regions of the world. Its aim is to provide a high-level, multi-stakeholder forum to discuss new challenges in water and sanitation, arising from global changes such as climate change, population growth and urbanization, as well as to explore innovative strategies for addressing these challenges.

The panel discussions will be organized in four sessions, with particular emphasis on the impacts of global changes on access to water and sanitation:

• Session 1: The Effects of Climate Change on Water Resources
• Session 2: Population Growth and Urbanization Pressure on Water and Sanitation
• Session 3: New Economic and Political Models to Water and Sanitation for Resource Scarcity and for Emerging Countries
• Session 4: Sanitation: Are We on the Right Track Towards the MDG Target on Sanitation?

The outcome of the roundtable deliberations will also contribute to the First Preparatory Committee Meeting of the Ministerial Process of the 5th World Water Forum, to be held at the UNESCO Headquarters on 11-12 September.

The roundtable will be held in English and French. Attendance by pre-registration only – free registration (lunch included). Please register to: resources@eurorscg.fr; Tel: +33 (0)1 58 47 93 75. Venue: UNESCO Fontenoy, Room IV.

UNESCO to host First Preparatory Committee meeting of the Ministerial Process of the Fifth World Water Forum

The First Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meeting of the Ministerial Process of the 5th World Water Forum, hosted by the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and co-organized by the World Water Council, will be held at the UNESCO Headquarters on 11-12 September 2008.  The first in a series of four PrepComs, this initial meeting of government-nominated experts from all nations will set forth the issues that will be addressed by the Forum’s Ministerial Process, whose main aim is to prepare a Ministerial Agenda for “Water Management Adaptation Strategies for Global Changes including Climate Change/Variability”. A Ministerial Discussion Paper on the theme will be presented at the meeting to provide the basis for discussions and consultations on the best ways to confront global changes and their impacts on water resources.

The discussions will revolve around the 6 main themes of the Thematic Programme of the 5th World Water Forum:

• Theme I: Global Changes and Risk Management
• Theme II: Advancing Human Development and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
• Theme III: Managing and Protecting Water Resources and their Supply Systems to Meet Human and Environmental Needs
• Theme IV: Governance and Management
• Theme V: Finance
• Theme VI: Education, Knowledge and Capacity Development

The meeting will further develop the Ministerial Discussion Paper into a Chairman’s Paper to be presented at the Second PrepCom meeting in Geneva in December 2008.

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UNESCO-PCCP Water and Conflict Resolution Series publishes book “Water and Peace for the People – Possible solutions to water disputes in the Middle East”

Dr. Jon Martin Trondalen is the Chairman of the Compass Foundation, in Geneva, Switzerland. He has 15 years of experience as a facilitator/mediator, and has chaired several bilateral and multilateral negotiations on water disputes in the Middle East; assisted national governments and the United Nations in various capacities related to resolution of environmental and water resource disputes; and trained diplomats, technical delegates and UN staff from various countries.

His book proposes practical and objective solutions to the entrenched water conflicts in the Middle East. The author reveals and clarifies the complexity of water conflicts, drawing on years of experience facilitating and chairing water negotiations in the region.

The publication of this book follows the objective of UNESCO’s PCCP Programme: it facilitates multi-level and interdisciplinary dialogue in order to foster peace, co-operation and development in the management of shared water resources.

The bottom line of the book is: Unless the countries involved co-operate, the consequences will be devastating. The lack of plentiful and clean water for the people will not only result in severe human suffering, but could also have grave geopolitical consequences.

The book covers four critical areas:

• the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, where new documentation reveals alarming trends;
• the political sensitive Golan Heights, with its water disputed by Israel and Syria;
• the Hasbani water dispute between Lebanon and Israel;
• the longstanding water resource dispute between the Israelis and Palestinians.

The book “Water and Peace for the People” will be launched on 11 September at 6 p.m. at UNESCO Headquarters.

PCCP web site

IHP launches “UNESCO Tertiary Water Education Grants Programme”

The Intergovernmental Council of the International Hydrological Programme (IHP), at its last session held in Paris 9-14 June 2008, has launched the ‘UNESCO Tertiary Water Education Grants Programme’. This programme intends to strengthen the capacities of human resources working on water issues in UNESCO Member States in support of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and within the frameworks of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) and the International Decade for Action: Water for Life. It also addresses one of the main challenges for UNESCO as identified in the Medium-Term Strategy for 2008-2013, namely to build capacities to manage water through the mobilization of science knowledge. The activity offers water professionals from UNESCO Member States the possibility to pursue an MSc degree at UNESCO-IHE in a field directly relevant to the MDGs and to the objectives of the 7th phase of IHP (2008-2013). The initial programme foresees support to a minimum of 5 MSc programme students at UNESCO-IHE per biennium. The intention is to increase the number of grants in the coming years via extrabudgetary contributions from Member States. The selection process is done via the IHP Regional Hydrologists, in close coordination with UNESCO-IHE. The programme will be announced for the next biennium.

The IHP Council has also endorsed an activity focusing on the global assessment of water education and training needs intends. This activity, in which UNESCO-IHE will play a central role, intends to enhance current knowledge about gaps at all levels of water education, also highlighting its links with capacity development.

Programme details

PCCP organises an Advanced Course for Trainers in Negotiation Skills, Relating to Cooperation Building around Water Resource in the Middle East.

The UNESCO PCCP Programme, whose mandate is to facilitate multi-level and interdisciplinary dialogues in order to foster peace, co-operation and development related to the management of shared water resources, is organising a 4-day advanced training for trainers in cooperation building skills relating to the use of water resources in the Middle East.

The training will take place from 28 to 31 October 2008 in the premises of the WWAP Secretariat, in Perugia (Italy).

Through its Research and Capacity building/enhancement activities, the PCCP programme brings players engaged in transboundary water management together and helps them improve their skills in cooperation building.

The course will be the basis for enhancing the teaching ability of each participant to act effectively among his/her constituencies. It will provide new and additional insights into the art of cooperation and trust building related to the use of shared water resources. It is also expected to be a forum where participants would exchange their respective skills while enhancing their comparative advantages and experiences.

PCCP web site

Access a complete list of water events around the world

• Water, sanitation and hygiene are three intertwined determinants of the water/ill-health/poverty spectrum, considering hygiene in its broadest sense, including environmental as well as personal hygiene.
• A lack of adequate sanitation is the most critical determinant of contamination of drinking water with micro-organisms.
• More than 2.6 billion people - 40% of the world's population - lack basic sanitation facilities.
• Over 1 billion people around the world still use unsafe drinking water sources.
• The diseases and conditions of ill-health directly associated with water, sanitation and hygiene include infectious diarrhoea (which, in turn, includes cholera, salmonellosis, shigellosis, amoebiasis and a number of other protozoal and viral infections), typhoid and paratyphoid fevers, acute hepatitis A, acute hepatitis E and F, fluorosis, arsenicosis, legionellosis, methaemoglobinaemia, schistosomiasis, trachoma, intestinal helminth infections (including ascariasis, trichuriasis and hookworm infection), dracunculiasis, scabies, dengue, filariases (including lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis), malaria, Japanese encephalitis, West Nile virus infection, yellow fever and impetigo.
• Globally, between 1,085,000 and 2,187,000 deaths due to diarrhoeal diseases can be attributed to the 'water, sanitation and hygiene' risk factor, 90% of them among children under five.
• Improvements in safe water supply, and in particular in hygiene and sanitation, could reduce the incidence of diarrhoea by about 20% and the number of deaths due to diarrhoea by more than 50%.
• The simple act of washing hands at critical times (after using the toilet and handling infant faeces, before handling and eating food) can reduce diarrhoeal episodes by 33%.
• Meeting the sanitation target means that an average of 140 million people per year need to gain access to sanitation every year until 2015. Compared to the average of 85 million per year that gained access between 1990 and 2002, this poses a huge challenge to governments and the international community alike.

The section “Did You Know…?” is taken from the 1st World Water Development Report 'Water for People, Water for Life', UNICEF Sanitation Statistics website and UNICEF's Water, environment and sanitation programme website.

- International Hydrological Programme
- World Water Assessment Programme
- UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education
- Water-related Institutes and Centres under the Auspices of UNESCO
- UNESCO Water-related Chairs

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For contributions or comments, contact the editor at waterportal@unesco.org