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Johannesburg, 02.09.2002

World Summit in Johannesburg

Breakthrough: drinking water and basic sanitation

Another success story from the UN Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg: The summit action programme will incorporate the goal to halve the proportion of people lacking access todrinking water and basic sanitation such as waste water treatment and waste disposal by 2015. Last night a Ministers' meeting chaired by South Africa's Environment Minister Valli Moosa managed toagree on the respective wording.

This meets with a requirement pushed in particular by the German government through the EU.

Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Juergen Trittin, German Minister for the Environment both welcomed this breakthrough: "Worldwide 2.4 billion people arewithout access to drinking water, sanitation or waste water treatment. This causes serious diseases and the death of hundreds of thousands of people, in particular children. The decision taken todayis both another concrete step towards combating poverty worldwide and a critical contribution to protecting the world's natural resources."