This post is about question 3:
Which of the original MDGs targets must be kept, abandoned or added? Assuming that you would like to than the targets after 2015 to include a target still on the water, how would frame you? What would the key progress and success measures?
Firstly, a few words to the proposals below in context. Water and its different uses (including to grow food, to generate prosperity for the daily life and survival of individuals) is essential for all human societies around the world; It is a central element of the ecosystem of the Earth and water for survival is a human right. It therefore deserves special attention in the discussion of the 2015 Millennium development goals.
My proposal is not to create new targets related to water, but instead, we should strengthen and clarify existing instruments.
Make sure first, objective access to more ambitious water safety in the achievement of the MDGs. We must bear in mind that access to safe water is a man good, that is to say, it has a special status compared to some of the other objectives. With 95 million additional people access to drinking water, we could reach the target of 100% by 2030. I think we should be more ambitious and try and achieve the 100% coverage for water already by 2025 or earlier. This objective should be complemented with guarantees that the needs of fresh water (25-50 litres per person, per day, with the quantity to be defined in accordance with the local situation, the climate, etc.) will be provided free of charge to those who cannot afford it.
There may be also necessary to define a regional focus to these efforts. According to a study recently published by the United Nations program for the environment (UNEP), about 51 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo - three quarters of the country's population - have no access to clean water, even if the country holds more than half of the Africa water reserves.
In addition, we should look for opportunities to establish quality objectives. On the one hand, to improve the quality of the water supplied (in many places, it has deteriorated) and on the other hand, to improve the type of access (from a village well at faucets in the home). Today, more than a third of what is considered the access to drinking water still comes from public taps, terminals fountains, tube wells, boreholes and dug wells.
Given also speed up urbanization, the goal of sanitation must be set even more ambitious way and implemented more rigorously. The question of access to sanitation is particularly complex and needs further analysis. What should be included in this analysis and in goal, is the maintenance of the existing structures as well as the development of new products.
One the greatest challenges for access to drinking water and sanitation, including the maintenance, renewal and extension, is the cost - with an estimated $ 27 trillion infrastructure spending needed by 2030 all. It is the equivalent of about one-third of global annual GDP today. The key to the success measures should include looking at the side funding too.
Management of water resources: the objectives must be managed, but formulated in a much clearer manner. Discovered the water is already a very serious problem today ' hui. If no action is taken, this may seriously endanger the food security, economic growth (water, energy and industry) and finally also the quantity and quality of drinking water.
For example, in Bangladesh, massive over-pumping of groundwater and resulting from falling water tables have led to an increase in important and dangerous natural arsenic dissolved in the water. Some of my ideas are influenced by my work as a catalyst 2030 water resources group (there are also discovered by watershed estimates), but there are other ways to address the problems. For the Group of water resources, there may be a "result" and "facilitator" to articulate. This takes us into the realm of exploitable multi-stakeholder partnerships with Governments, as those put in place supported by WRG locally.
The water is local, and therefore the global goals must be relevant at the local level. In addition, the goal for a result of better management of the resources is much more difficult to identify and measure progress toward a goal for the first two goals (drinking water, sanitation). My proposal to provide a direction and to reflect on the new lens formula is to line up fresh water withdrawals in the main basins catchment/River sustainable return of supply (natural renewal less environmental flows).
These objectives should be implemented in a dynamic environment, characterized by growing needs of water and in the link between the energy of the water. No doubt, learning in water to date suggests that focusing on the improvement of management of water resources (the "how" rather than the "what") may be the key.
Given this perspective, it will be also important to provide tools that ensure that the measures taken are actually relevant to the gap between the withdrawals and sustainable supply (not pretend, not in piecemeal) and that they are cost-effective.
Please let me know your thoughts.
My answers to other questions about "Water in the Millennium after 2015 strategy" can also be interested:
1 Have been useful original targets in the mind of the Government, companies and civil society with emphasis on the water crisis and its importance in social and economic development overall?
2. What remains to be done before that date to complete the work begun in 2000?
4. What role and responsibility of the private sector to take delivering these objectives?
5. What would you do the Governments?
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