JOINT MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION
13.3.2006
- –Eija-Riitta Korhola and Godelieve Quisthoudt-Rowohl, on behalf of the PPE Group
- –Pierre Schapira and Marie-Arlette Carlotti, on behalf of the PSE Group
- –Thierry Cornillet and Fiona Hall, on behalf of the ALDE Group
- –Caroline Lucas, David Hammerstein Mintz, Frithjof Schmidt and Alain Lipietz, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group
- –Francis Wurtz and Roberto Musacchio, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group
- –Cristiana Muscardini, on behalf of the UEN Group
- –PSE (B6‑0149/2006)
- –PPE-DE (B6‑0153/2006)
- –Verts/ALE (B6‑0155/2006)
- –GUE/NGL (B6‑0163/2006)
- –ALDE (B6‑0164/2006)
- –UEN (B6‑0165/2006)
European Parliament resolution on the Fourth World Water Forum in Mexico City (16-22 March 2006)
The European Parliament,
– having regard to the '4th World Water Forum' which will take place in Mexico City on 16-22 March 2006,
– having regard to the final declarations of the first three 'World Water Forums' in Marrakesh (1997), The Hague (2000) and Kyoto (2003),
– having regard to the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the 2005 final report of the UN Millennium Project Task Force on Water and Sanitation, entitled 'Health, Dignity and Development: What it will take',
– having regard to the second edition of the UN World Water Development Report, 'Water, a Shared Responsibility', issued on 9 March 2006,
– having regard to the G8 Water Action Plan adopted at the Evian Summit in 2003, confirmed in the G8 Gleneagles Declaration of 7 July 2005,
– having regard to the EU Water Initiative (EUWI) launched at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg (WSSD) in 2002,
– having regard to the ACP-EU Water Facility, launched in 2004,
– having regard to the 2003 European Parliament resolution on water management in developing countries,
– having regard to its resolution of 11 March 2004 on 'the Internal Market Strategy - Priorities 2003-2006', Paragraph 5 of which states that, 'since water is a shared resource of mankind, the management of water resources should not be subject to the rules of the internal market',
– having regard to Rule 108(5) of its Rules of Procedure,
A. whereas half of the world's population is suffering from a lack of sanitation or of access to drinking water, and there is clear evidence of a looming global water crisis threatening not only sustainable development but also peace and security; whereas millions of women and children suffer disproportionately from insufficient access to drinking water and sanitation,
B. whereas one of the main targets of the 'UN Millennium Development Goals' (MDG) is to 'cut in half, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation',
C. whereas the main theme of the Mexico Forum is 'local actions for a global challenge', whereas the distribution of water is extremely inegalitarian, whereas it ought to be a universal public service planned and managed at local level, which is the most appropriate level for it, whereas around these local public services it is possible for innovative and democratic communal capacity for governance to develop and whereas control over water and its quality is vital to the sustainable development of the most deprived populations,
D. whereas water quality, which is essential to life, is one of the major factors in mortality in developing countries, causing millions of deaths every year, half of the casualties being children, with over a billion people not having access to drinking water and two and a half billion having no access to sanitation,
E. whereas the European Union and its Member States provide some € 1.4 billion per year for water and sanitation in developing countries, making the EU the largest aid provider in the world in this sector,
F. whereas the ACP-EU Water Facility aims, within the framework of the MDGs and the WSSD targets, to 'boost the sustainable delivery of water and sanitation infrastructure and improve water governance and Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) practices in ACP countries by helping to address the financing gap',
1. Declares that water is a shared resource of mankind and that, as such, access to water constitutes a fundamental human right; calls for all the necessary efforts to be made to guarantee access to water for the most deprived populations by 2015;
2. Calls for the Commission to represent the European Union at the Mexico Forum with a mandate to seek recognition in the final Ministerial Declaration that access to drinking water is a fundamental human right; calls, in this context, for the European Union and its Member States to propose, under the auspices of the United Nations, the drafting of an international treaty on water and the management of water resources which recognises the right to access to drinking water;
3. Regrets the low level of incorporation of World Water Forum actions in the work of the United Nations; recalls that 21 international agencies deal in various ways with the water issue and, in this connection, calls for the establishment of a 'Water Coordination Agency' under the direct responsibility of the United Nations;
4. Stresses that this 'Water Coordination Agency' should integrate protection of public health and the environment into water resource management and have the task of developing strategies that encourage forms of economic and agricultural development compatible with maintaining or restoring a high standard of water quality;
5. Emphasises that the management of water resources should revolve around a participatory and integrated approach that associates users and decision-makers in establishing water policies at the local level and in a democratic manner;
6. Calls for all programmes on water supply and sanitation to include specific efforts directed at addressing gender inequalities - so as to ensure equal distribution of benefits and opportunities resulting from them - and at supporting women's role in the supply, management and maintenance of water resources;
7. Welcomes the allocation of € 500 million from the 9th EDF, added to earlier funding of € 475 million from the 9th EDF for water supply and sanitation, for the launching of the ACP-EU Water Facility; calls for water supply and sanitation to be adequately funded in the 10th EDF; hopes that international institutions will increase the share of water in their action plans and that debt relief will also benefit investment in water;
8. Underlines and supports the findings of the UN Millennium Project Task Force on Water and Sanitation, according to which the main 'MDG targets' will be missed unless a number of preconditions are met, including
● increased development assistance for and increased targeting of the Least Developed Countries,
● a reallocation of resources from low- and middle-income developing countries to the poorest,
● increased involvement of all relevant actors to create real ownership of water supply and sanitation initiatives and to focus on community mobilisation;
9. Calls for local authorities in the European Union to be encouraged to allocate a proportion of the charges paid by users for the supply of water and sanitation services to decentralised cooperation measures, and for the Union to set aside the necessary resources to enable it to support and back up such measures, in particular with regard to coordinating data, and exploiting and disseminating results;
10. Calls on the Commission and the Council to recognise the fundamental role of local authorities in water protection and management and regrets that the skills, experience and resources of local authorities are insufficiently requested, used and exploited by European funding programmes since, given their technical competences, know-how and experience, EU local authorities are particularly suited to helping local authorities in developing countries;
11. Underlines that action to improve water supply and sanitation must not be taken in isolation, but should rather be part of a coherent, cross-cutting development strategy that includes other policy areas such as health and education, infrastructure, capacity-building and good governance as well as sustainable development strategies;
12. Underlines the importance of early prevention of latent regional water-related conflicts, especially in regions where countries share a common basin; calls, in this context, for further EU and international efforts to improve regional water policy coordination and to promote the setting-up of regional water management bodies;
13. Welcomes and encourages the mobilisation efforts of European and international civil society organisations in seeking solutions to problems relating to access to water, particularly for the poorest populations; recommends that the 2006 World Water Forum's participants take an active part in the activities of civil society organisations during the days when the Forum is taking place and seriously consider the proposals made on that occasion;
14. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the ACP-EU Council, the UN Secretary General and the general secretariat of the 'Committees for the Global Water Contract'.