THE INDEPENDENT FAMILY OF PUBLICATIONS FROM INTER PRESS SERVICE

Alejandro Kirk

BEPPU, Dec 4 - The prevailing thinking among business, academic and public sector representatives meeting here yesterday is that without the private sector actively involved in providing management and technology, there is no solution to the shortage of drinking water and sanitation in the Asia-Pacific region.

Unlike other international gatherings, there were no dissenting voices from civil society this time claiming that as a basic human right, water, like fresh air, cannot be subject to the supply-and-demand market rules. On the contrary, speakers coincided in underlining the importance of people’s commitment, but in the form of accepting the fact that water is a product in which there is a value-added input.

That activists were not present contributed a great deal to the chairwoman’s objective of keeping the meeting within the scarce 90 minutes available, which included 20 presentations. Charmine Koda, Director of the U.N. Information Centre in Japan, even managed to leave five minutes for a debate that did not take place. While activists tend to overstretch their statements, business executives seem to have less time for discussions.

Frederick Dubee, an advisor to the U.N. Global Compact set by former Secretary General Kofi Annan to involve business in meeting the challenges of global sustainable development, proposed that all those attending could form a new network, given the “tremendous contributions” they were able to provide in their three-minute presentations.

Of them, “I like the concept of private-public people,” he said. “If each person saved one drop of water a day, that is six billion drops a day,” he reflected, temporarily forgetting that one of the figures most quoted in the Summit is the 700 million human beings in this region who lack access to drinking water and therefore cannot afford to save – or waste – any drop.

Sherisa Nuesa, of the Manila Water Company, highlighted the tremendous success achieved after the privatisation of water services in the Philippine capital, which permitted a jump from 26 to 98 percent coverage just by recovering losses. This process, she said, took into account the needs of low-income communities, with which formed partnerships, proving true that “doing good is good business.”

Masaru Kurihara, of Toray Industries, explained the advantages of purchasing his company’s membrane water treatment, for example to desalinise water, which has helped achieve an impressive 80 percent recovery of water by Japanese manufacturers. Toray membranes now cost one-tenth of their market value in 1970 and are 90 percent more efficient.

Margaret Catley-Carlson, head of the Global Water Partnership, said “the business world is waking up to the reality of water,” which requires what business does best – managing – because “we can’t create new water.”

Water has become a problem, she said, for three reasons: population growth, prosperity and pollution. “In managing water, technology and science are only part of the solution. Perhaps the easier part. The other part is about attitudes. For example if Malaysians don’t like paying for water, if they were induced to think that water is not something you pay to have, then it is an issue, no matter how good science and technology are,” she said.

Japanese protestors, a very tiny group though, were saying just that earlier on outside the Summit: “Water is not for sale.” But by all means to this meeting, it looks like they are wrong and water is or should be for sale so that things can be managed.

On who is responsible for pollution, it was generally mentioned that manufacturing industries are the main water users. There was no blaming