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December
8-13, 2003 Statement by H.
E. Mr. Shiferaw Jarso H.
E. Dawit Yohanes, Speaker of the House of Ladies and Gentlemen, It is my honor and pleasure on behalf of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and on my own behalf, to welcome you all to this Pan-African Implementation and Partnership Conference on Water. Recognizing the vital role that water plays in the sustainable development of Africa, African Governments have identified water sector as one of the main pillars of NEPAD's programme and have effectively initiated AMCOW to provide policy direction and advocacy in the use and management of water to enhance an all rounded socio-economic transformation of our continent. Following these initiatives, the creation of sub regional arrangements to deal with water resources issues, the establishment of the Africa Water Facility (AWF) to ensure investment support for water resources management and preparation of portfolio of water projects/programmes for implementation are clear encouraging steps. Moreover, many governments in Africa, including my government have fully recognized the importance of basin-wide management of natural resources, especially water resources. In order to implement such strategic approach towards sustainable and comprehensive management of water resources, Regional Development and Management Cooperation Frameworks to enhance development of these vital resources is taking momentum; a good example of such measures is the Nile Basin Initiative /NBI/. Governments of the Eastern Nile countries and the Lake's Region have continued to show their ever increased commitment with the support of bilateral donors and international multilateral agencies like the World Bank and others. This is not the only good example that we can sight about; there are also similar experiences in the southern Africa region like SADC; and others in the western part of the continent on rivers like Senegal and Zambezi. Ladies and Gentlemen, The importance of water in poverty reduction is something that we all have recognized very well. Without adequate development of water resources through sustainable financial investment and improvements in governance, it is something next to impossible to fight poverty and bring about lasting peace and prosperity to our people. Therefore, in order to ensure sustainable water resources management for the common good of the peoples of Africa, we all stakeholders should concretize our commitments, thinking and every agreed plans at regional, sub regional, national and local levels. As Water Sector infrastructure development requires huge amount of investment and technical capacity, it is an up hill battle for Africa to meet the international commitments as pledged by the United Nations Member States for 2015. What ever is said under the MDGs and WSSD can only be realized if and only if genuine support is secured from all bilateral and multilateral donors and government agencies. At this point in time, we have to consider that every bilateral and multilateral donor organization is our friend. The spirit of partnership in meeting the needs, interests and all-rounded development aspirations of our people becomes the corner stone of our lasing co-operations with friends and allies. Therefore, international communities in general and developed countries in particular should genuinely continue to support initiatives like NEPAD and AMCOW to straighten Africa's future. However, a reliable and lasting solution for our people and continent mostly depends on how much we ourselves have the political will to timely response to the demands of our people. Ladies and Gentlemen, Over the last many years, there have been a number of meetings, conferences, consultations dialogues and pledges with out tangible simultaneous actions. We need concrete actions to implement agreed programmes and arrangements to alleviate poverty, hunger, and disease and to generally end with the social and economic disruptions of Africa so as it makes effective contribution to peace and prosperity in our world. As our people can't afford any more time for discussions and official statements, let us allow our people to hear from all of us here while making new commitments that our real actions would speak louder than promises. We need to quickly transform our written statements into the phase of implementation of programmes and strategies as planned and agreed. Let me conclude. I wish you a very successful conference and pleasant stay in the City of Addis Ababa, the seat of the African Union that we all of us are proud of. Thank you.
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