Water - a Key to Sustainable Development in Africa

Towards Achieving the targets set at the Millennium Summit and the World Summit on Sustainable Development

I. Introduction

We, the members of the Steering Committee of the African Ministerial Council on Water (AMCOW), having met in Dakar, Senegal, from 20-24 May 2003, adopt the "NEPAD Statement on International Solidarity with Africa for the achievement of the water-related targets in the Millennium Development Goals and the outcomes of the World Summit on Sustainable Development". Our meeting, in Dakar, is part of our quest for implementation actions in line with the expectations of the Johannesburg Summit.

For over 30 years, numerous conferences and international agreements have built the framework for today's water resource policies and decisions.

The international community, in both the millennium goals and the outcomes of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, underlined that the global water crisis is a threat to economic development, poverty reduction and the environment, and hence to peace.

II. Time for Action: Towards a new regional and global compact for achieving, in Africa, the targets on water

We note that the supply and quality of freshwater in Africa remains one of the most critical issues of the twenty-first century.

In Africa close to 40% of the population are without access to safe water supply and even more lack adequate sanitation. A number of partnership initiatives as well as a new water policy framework were announced at the WSSD, including the recent reform of EU water policy and the new Water Framework Directive of the EU. The need to integrate sustainable water management in national and regional development strategies is now widely recognised as a pre-requisite for achieving the Millennium Development Goals on water in Africa.

We welcome the international community's recognition that, in "Africa, over 40% of our people have no access to water. We call on the international community, in conformity with the NEPAD goals, to work with Africa in addressing the myriad challenges inherent in long-term water management. The International Community should support regional efforts to develop coherent water management strategies, to set up appropriate bodies at national, regional and local level, and to attract the necessary public and private investment.

In this regard, we applaud the solidarity of the European Union with Africa in the water sector, as manifested in the launch, on the occasion of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, of a major initiative to help achieve, in our region, the targets set at the Millennium Summit and in Johannesburg to reduce by half the number of people without access to drinking water and sanitation by the year 2015.

We recognise that the achievement of those targets calls - for measures and initiatives of a very special character on the part of all concerned, including our countries and civil societies as well as bilateral and multilateral agencies, the private sector and other stakeholders, if we are to mobilise the resources needed. We also fully realise the urgent need for innovative mechanisms to enable us to mobilise significant sources of financing from public, private and international resources.

As part of our commitment to the achievement of the targets, on water, in the Millennium Development Goals and the Johannesburg Action Plan, the African governments along with representatives of the international community will convene the Pan-African Implementation and Partnership Conference on Water, in Addis Ababa, 9 - 14 December 2003.

At the Conference, we shall agree on a roadmap to expedite the translation of commitments into action, through a series of concrete measures and initiatives in the water sector. In this regard, the Conference will address the implications of the WSSD on regional water initiatives, and the continent's role in the implementation of the Summit's outcomes. The Conference will provide a unique opportunity to determine how to collectively meet the WSSD targets on water and to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Our objective is to focus attention on the implementation requirements as well as the means of implementing, in Africa, the many regional and international targets in the water sector. The Pan-African Conference will seek to secure inter/intra African commitments to the implementation of targets, and build international solidarity in the form of meaningful partnerships.

Under the aegis of NEPAD/AMCOW, we shall, at the Pan African Conference launch:

• the African Water Development Report;
  
• a regional initiative for integrated water resources management in each country;
  
• a master plan for trans-boundary basins management;
  
• an innovative programme for strengthening national and sub-regional water policies, laws,
  institutions and other instruments;
  
• specific modalities for the effective implementation, at the national, sub-regional and regional levels, of the EU-Africa strategic partnership on water;
  
• modalities for the full implementation of the African Water Facility for mobilisation of public and private as well as international financing essential to the achievement of the targets in the water supply and sanitation sector at the national and sub-regional levels;
  
• a regional initiative for financing groundwater assessment and management.

III. Support to Africa by the Group of Eight Industrialised Countries (G 8)

At its Summit in Kananaskis, Canada in 2002, the G8 Group of Industrialised Countries noted that the importance of water spans over a wide range of critical uses - from drinking water, to sanitation, to food security and agriculture, to economic activity, to protecting the natural environment. The G8 Leaders also noted that water management is sometimes at the centre of threats to regional peace and security. The African Ministerial Council on Water notes the measures taken by the Kananaskis Summit to encourage efforts to improve water resources development and management in Africa. That Summit laid a firm basis for supporting Africa's water-related initiatives.

Nine months ago at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the international community committed itself to specific goals, targets and time bound measures aimed at accelerating the transition to sustainable development. While some of these targets constitute a reaffirmation of the Millennium Development Goals, most represent new commitments.

As the leaders of the Group of Eight Industrialised Countries meet in Evian-les-Bains, France, at their first Summit since Johannesburg, a key question demanding urgent attention is the needed partnership to help Africa achieve specific time bound measures, particularly within the context of the following water and sanitation targets agreed to at the WSSD:

• Establishment of a world solidarity fund to eradicate poverty and promote social and human development, making community level water and sanitation projects eligible for funding;
  
• Elements for a programme of action on sanitation;
  
• A mandate to launch a programme of action, with financial and technical assistance to achieve the millennium development goal on safe drinking water and the additional target on sanitation;
  
• Development of integrated water resource management and water efficiency plans by 2005 with support to developing countries;
  
• Support to activities for the International Year of Freshwater in 2003 and beyond;
  
• A call for effective co-ordination among the various international and intergovernmental bodies and processes working on water related issues.

The international community has underlined that the global water crisis is a threat to economic development, poverty reduction and the environment and hence to peace.

We invite the leaders of the G8 Countries to build a new compact with our region in the field of water - a key to sustainable development in Africa. We call on the lettyeaders of the G8 group of Countries to endorse, at its 2003 Summit, an action plan on support to the water sector in Africa.