Toespraak door de Prins van Oranje, voorzitter van de adviesraad voor Water en Sanitatie van de Secretaris-Generaal van de Verenigde Naties (UNSGAB), tijdens de 'high level' bijeenkomst in Washington DC, 23 april 2010

Toespraak | 23-04-2010

'Sanitation and Water for All; a global framework for action'.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Thank you for inviting me here today as Chair of the UN Secretary-General's Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation and for giving me this opportunity to say a few words to you.

For those unfamiliar with UNSGAB, we are mandated to advise the Secretary-General, to raise public awareness, and to galvanise governments and international organisations to achieve the MDG target on water and sanitation. Let me be clear: we are not a donor. We catalyse action on water and sanitation. Our work is spelled out in the Hashimoto Action Plan, which was recently updated. The plan identifies five areas most in need of focused, coordinated action. They are Financing, Sanitation, Monitoring, Water and Disaster, and Integrated Water Resources Management.

For several years, we have stressed the importance of strategic dialogues on water and sanitation financing. We are convinced that extending drinking water and sanitation coverage and maintaining existing services call for a more strategic and comprehensive country-owned approach to financing. The real challenges in the water and sanitation sector are institutional, not technological. Of course we need hydraulic and sanitation engineers, but the real solutions lie in concerted governance reform, targeted financing and political action. So this Sanitation and Water for All initiative is a most welcome and valuable opportunity to bring finance ministers, water and sanitation ministers, and other key partners around the same table.

Everyone in this room understands that a national budgeting process is a fierce competition for financial resources. That is why we must target high-impact interventions. We must show convincingly that spending money on sanitation and water services yields big gains in terms of economic growth, social development and environmental sustainability. Ensuring the extension of sanitation and water services requires not only significant investment but also better governance and appropriate legal and regulatory structures. It is a difficult challenge. Yet it is one we simply must meet. The human, economic and environmental cost of business-as-usual is simply not acceptable.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Governments in many developing countries not only struggle to find enough resources to deliver basic services, but their planning and budgeting processes are typically more complex than those in more prosperous countries because they are dependent on donors. They must meet the requirements of a range of organisations and their national structures and politics. Though they mean well, external agencies often contribute to fragmented and uncoordinated action because of the many demands they make on recipient governments. I appeal to the donor countries here to unshackle ODA from the administrative and bureaucratic red-tape that makes the distribution of funds so very complex and inefficient.

But convincing donor countries to improve and streamline their reporting requirements is not enough. Governance structures for water and sanitation must be in place to absorb and distribute ODA effectively. Government leadership remains vital in delivering these services. Effective and transparent national planning is needed, with an accountable senior minister. And we cannot ignore the crippling cost of corruption that has a disproportionate impact on the most marginalised communities, those with the weakest voice to demand greater accountability. Better governance and increased accountability are some of the most forceful arguments for advocating increased ODA.

To solve these problems, recipients or distributors of ODA need partners, and that is the unique value of this Sanitation and Water for All partnership. I urge all of you in this room to remember our collective objective. We will only succeed if you make concrete commitments to removing obstacles to accelerated progress towards sanitation and water for everyone. And it is critical that all of us agree to be held accountable for those commitments.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The clock is ticking. Less than five years from today we will be judged against the MDGs that were unanimously adopted by the World community in 2000. We must shift now to the highest gear to reach out to those in desperate need of clean water and decent toilets. Given how far we are lagging behind on the sanitation target, UNSGAB is helping to build a coalition around a sustainable sanitation half decade - 'the five-year drive to 2015'. The aim is to build on the success of the International Year of Sanitation in 2008 and to keep sanitation high on the development agenda through to 2015. If we do not generate the political will and financial support for these two fundamental building blocks of human development and dignity our hopes of achieving all the MDGs will be seriously compromised.

I would like to thank UNICEF for hosting this meeting in partnership with the World Bank. I am heartened to see the growing sense of urgency surrounding sanitation and water issues. I truly hope that when we gather in 2015 to mark the end of the MDG process we can be proud of the progress we have made in providing these basic services. They are, after all, the cornerstones of development.

Thank you.