New York, 14 April: Three leading international organisations and partners working in the water and sanitation sector attending the 13th session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-13) meeting in New York this week said that "without more and better financing the MDG targets on water and sanitation will not be met; and without meeting the water and sanitation targets other targets on education, child mortality and economic growth will also suffer.”
The first side event to address the crucial issue of financing, the session was chaired by Tearfund's Andy Atkins, and featured speakers Gourisankar Ghosh, Executive Director of the WSSCC, David Redhouse of WaterAid and Naomi Foxwood, Tearfund, Mr. Adama Mbaye of the Ministry of Prevention, Sanitation and Public Hygiene of Senegal, Mr. George Bakamalunga, Chair, Water and Sanitation Network of Uganda and Ms. Franca Schwartz of the Environment Ministry of Germany.
WaterAid, Tearfund and the WSSCC presented the results of country-level research and case studies on financing which brought to light five common financing actions which are key to delivering sustainable sanitation and water to the pooorest.
Contained in a joint publication entitled “The Boiling Point”, the proposed five financing actions are:
· Fiscal decentralization: devolving money to local governments: the example of Tanzania was raised where local government has on average 11 cents to serve each person without water and sanitation
· Sector coordination: increasing donor coordination: doing away with the confusing multitudinous funding routes beloved of donors but burdening developing countries.
· Sector financing: increasing the amounts allocated by central governments to the sector
· Priority to sanitation: prioritising sanitation by placing it in an institutional home and with a separate budget line
· Low-cost technologies: using low-cost technologies such as rainwater harvesting, to increase sustainability; for example, a study from three Ethiopian regions was highlighted, which shows that only 50% of boreholes are functioning.
There was consensus on the importance of these financing keys, with the European Union in particular voicing their support.
A lively discussion concluded that the role of civil society as equal partners around the table in policy discussions is vital. The event concluded with a call to participants to use the CSD13 process to catalyse some concrete and time-specific actions from all stakeholders. The question was asked: ‘without these commitments will CSD13 actually make a difference to people on the ground suffering the indignity, ill health and poverty that accompanies a lack of access to safe water and adequate sanitation?’
Ends.