Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Nine months ago, I enjoyed meeting your President, Mr. Henry Artsen, during the 2nd World Water Forum in The Hague. He invited me to come to Brazil for the Expo AIDIS/Aquatech Latin America and the XXVII (Twenty-seventh) AIDIS Conference. It was with great pleasure that I accepted the invitation, not just because I have very good memories of earlier visits to this magnificent country, but above all because I share your concern about the lack of access to water supply and hygienic conditions that affects so many of the marginalized people on our planet.
Last week at the Fifth Forum of the collaborative Council on Water Supply and Sanitation in Iguaçu, UNICEF and WHO issued their joint report on these conditions. Since the last report was issued in 1990, the percentage of people served with some form of improved water supply rose from 79% (4.1 billion) to 82% (4.9 billion) whereas the proportion of the world's population with access to sanitation facilities increased from 55% (2.9 billion people served) to 60% (3.6 billion). While this result is encouraging, at the beginning of 2000 a total of 2.4 billion people world-wide were without access to improved sanitation and 1.1 billion were without access to improved water supply. Over a sixth of the world's population is without access to improved water supply while two-fifths of the world's population is without access to improved sanitation. Globally, rural services still lag far behind urban services in terms of percentage coverage. For sanitation, rural worldwide coverage is less than half that of the urban coverage level.
Your main concern here is the sanitation conditions of Latin Americans. I have heard numbers that suggest that only between 10% and 20% of combined industrial and municipal wastewater is treated in this region. At the Second World Water Forum in The Hague, I listened to a report from the region that told us that 20% of the population lacks access to clean water supplies, and 30 percent lacks access to sanitation services, especially in rural and marginal urban areas. This creates significant health risks to the citizens of the region. The report went on to say that perhaps one of the greatest challenges to the future of water in South America is the widespread degradation of the environment and water resources resulting from a lack of legislation, regulation, and enforcement of water quality standards and a lack of incentives for wastewater treatment.
Some countries, such as Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela, are currently giving more attention to wastewater treatment. Most countries have not adequately addressed the problem of preparing for floods and droughts and developing policies and plans to mitigate the impacts of these and other natural disasters. A major reform is now underway to transfer ownership of water utilities from the public to the private sector. States have not yet adjusted to their new role as supervisor and regulator of the private sector-owned utilities. Stakeholder participation in decision making is the exception rather than the rule. There is generally a lack of stable and consistent water policies. Finally, 60 percent of the population in the region live in transboundary river basins where shared management of water resources is needed in order to provide equitable distribution of water to all users.