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Water forum calls for water decade 2005-2015

The International Fresh Water Forum that ended on Monday in the Tajik capital Dushanbe has adopted an appeal to declare 2005-2015 the decade of water for life. "Supporting the plans and tasks adopted by the international community, the Dushanbe [Fresh Water] Forum is putting forward a proposal to declare the next decade the decade of water for life," Akil Akilov, the Tajik prime minister reportedly said at the final session of the conference. Tajik President Emomali Rahmonov speaking at the final plenary session of the conference noted that “the subject of water had become a new strategic goal of the international community, the achievement of which would serve people”. Assessing results reached at the Forum, Rahmonov noted that no country was in a position to address challenges and risks in water issues alone. One of the conference participants told IRIN that there was a proposal from the Tajik government to create a special information centre on water issues, which would conduct global monitoring of fresh water resources and make recommendations to governments and international institutions. Moreover, the importance of political will and commitment in terms of solving water problems in Central Asia was again emphasised as no trans-boundary water issues could be resolved unless there was a real political agreement between regional powers. TAJIKISTAN However, some experts and officials were quite sceptical about the forum and its impact. Ton Lennaerts, a consultant for the US-funded Central Asia Natural Resources Management Programme said that the impact of the forum in terms of helping the countries on the ground was very little. "All the region's water comes from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, but the borders with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are only half open to us," Kyrgyz deputy prime minister Bazarbai Mambetov reportedly said, adding that the talks process was upset by the participants ambitions. Additionally, the UN Human Development Report in Tajikistan in 2003 was presented to the conference by Zephirin Diabre, the United Nations Development Programme's Associate (UNDP) Administrator. "This report is dedicated to water resources and utilisation of Tajikistan's water potential," Andrey Sidorin, UNDP's external relations analyst told IRIN from Dushanbe, adding that water issues were closely related to the Millennium Development Goals and one of them was to decrease the number of people not having access to safe drinking water by half up to 2015. Representatives of some 53 countries and some 91 international organisations and agencies took part in the conference, sponsored by the UN and other international organisations. The UN's new World Water Development Report, launched in March this year, says more than 2.2 million people die each year from diseases related to contaminated drinking water and poor sanitation. By the middle of this century, at worst seven billion people in 60 countries will be faced with water scarcity, at best 2 billion in 48 countries, depending on factors like population growth and policy making, the report warns.

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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