Message from Beppu
BEPPU - At the end its two-day meeting, the 1st Asia-Pacific Water Summit formally confirmed yesterday the region’s commitment to achieve Target 10 of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG): halve by 2015 the number of people who lack access to drinking water and basic sanitation, and to zero by 2025.
In its “Message from Beppu,” all countries were urged to undertake the huge challenge of providing water to 700 million people and sanitation to almost two billion in the next 17 years.
For that purpose, “the leaders of the Asia-Pacific, coming from all sectors of our societies and countries” agreed to “accord the highest priority to water and sanitation in our economic and development plans” and to “increase substantially our allocation of resources.”
Better governance, efficiency, transparency and equity as well as the empowerment of women are considered essential to achieve the stated goals.
The message asks the UN Conference on Climatic Change meeting this week in Bali, Indonesia “to take into account the relationship between water and climate change, such as the melting of snowcaps and glaciers” and the rising sea levels.
To the Group of 8 industrialised economies meeting scheduled to take place in Japan in 2008, the Water Summit demands: “Commit to support developing countries to achieve their MDG targets” and “take immediate action to support adaptation to climatic change by developing countries.”
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