Your excellency, Minister of Public Works and Housing, Roberto White, your excellencies Ministers from the SADC region, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
Water is so essential to life in Southern Africa that the people of Botswana use the greeting "Pula", meaning rain (besides money). In Mozambique, I heard, they consider somebody who arrives with rain as somebody who is bringing prosperity. Yesterday when I arrived it was raining. Indeed, as an African expression says: water is the king of food.
But too much water and rain, I saw this morning, can have a dramatic impact. We visited parts of Polana Canico where the intensive rainfall left impressive scars in the terrain. It is difficult to gauge the full impact of a flood half a year after it took place, but here in Maputo the traces of erosion left by the water make it clear that this flood went far beyond one's imagination. Tomorrow I'll visit Chokwe and Xai Xai. I know that after several months it is hard to see the marks left by the floods. But I'll try to imagine the scale of the event with the images that I received through the media still fresh in my mind.
In March of this year, when Mozambique was assessing the aftermath of the flood, I had the honour of chairing the Second World Water Forum in The Hague. In the days leading up to the Forum, I watched with dismay reports on television.
The rescue operations were spectacular. Such as a crew member of a South African helicopter, dangling from a steel cable, who rescued a little child from the muddy waters. One particular rescue became the symbol of the entire operation. While President Chissano was overflying his home district of Chibuto, he spotted a family clinging to a tree. After he had asked the South African helicopter crew to rescue them, it turned out that 23 year old Sofia Chivure was nine months pregnant. Her daughter Rosita was born as the rescue helicopter hovered overhead. These images made a profound impression all over the world.
During this time I was in Southern Africa, where the delegation from Mozambique kindly kept me abreast of developments. This experience brought home to me in the most dramatic manner the full impacts that floods can have on people and countries.
As the floodwaters receded, it was clear that rebuilding the economy was going to be a long task. Mozambique had taken important steps on the road to economic revival, and suddenly there was the danger that all these achievements would be swept away. The country is faced with rebuilding much of its infrastructure - roads, bridges, electric power distribution, clinics and schools - all essential to social development and economic growth. Crops needed to be planted to ensure the next harvest - despite the loss of seeds and even the simple agricultural tools required for the task. Hundreds of thousands of individuals found that the meagre results of the whole of their life's work had literally been washed away. As the cleaning up and rebuilding began, people began asking the question - what can be done to avoid a recurrence of this disaster, or to limit its impact?
The people of Mozambique are not alone in the world in asking this question. The United Nations estimates that by 2025 half the world's population will be living in flood prone areas. These floods include both extreme runoff from rainstorms, that subsequently lead rivers to flood over their banks, and severe coastal storms or cyclones, that can lead to storm surges.
My country has also experienced dramatic floods, both from the sea and from the rivers. An unprecedented storm surge in 1953 caused a major disaster in the coastal area of The Netherlands. This event marked the start of the famous delta works. In the coat of arms of the Dutch province of Zeeland this continuous and centuries-old battle against water is symbolised by the words "Luctor et Emergo": I struggle and re-emerge.
Like Mozambique, the Netherlands lies at the downstream end of several international rivers. And after the heavy floods of 1993 and 1995, we are discussing how we can better deal with the occurrence of extreme flood events in these rivers.
In recent years we have seen an intensification of flooding disasters. Last week Europe experienced the heaviest floods on record in the foothills of the Alps in Italy. Partly, this is because we are making more intensive use of flood-prone areas, which increases the damage if a flood occurs. Partly it is the effect of global warming, which reduces the mitigating effect of snow in the mountains (not such a relevant issue here in Mozambique, but a major issue in the European rivers draining the Alps). In general, climate change may lead to greater fluctuations and the need to cope with higher extremes in our hydrological systems. But more importantly, it is the effect of land-use change in upper catchments and of human interventions that enhance the drainage and reduce the storage. In brief, it is improper water management that is, at least partly, to blame for the intensification of flood occurrences and flood damage that we are experiencing recently.
As we have seen this morning during our visit to the suburbs of Maputo, the danger of flooding in urban areas deserves more attention. All over the world we see that urban areas become more intensively used, increasing the density of occupation and, as a result, increasing the pressure on the drainage system. We see this happening in low-lying areas, such as in the Netherlands, where there is more pressure on the lowest and most flood-prone areas; and we see this in more mountainous areas where there is more pressure on the slopes. These developments can have dramatic consequences both in the developed and the developing world. Special attention needs to be given to poor people in this regard. Poor people often occupy the most risky parts of the city: the low-lying flood-prone areas, or the steep and unstable slopes. High intensity rainfall brings disastrous consequences in both cases.
I experienced this myself during a visit to Rio de Janeiro two years ago. One of the heaviest rainfall events hit the city during my working visit to the favelas. The destruction was enormous and my visit literally ended in water. When I returned to Rio later that year, I could see the impressive achievements made by the communities in improving the protection against erosion, in providing water supply, sanitation and waste collection. These achievements were part of an urban development programme that builds on local initiative and that transforms illegal settlements into official neighbourhoods where people are proud to have an official address; people were proud to show me the water bill that they had to pay.
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