• Title: A first concrete framework for action has been set up

• Subtitle: Water supply and development go hand in hand
• Speaker: Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Jürgen Trittin
• Date/Location: 7 December 2001, Bonn

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Excellencies,
Ministers,
Heads of Agencies,
Colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

First of all I would like to thank you, Ms. Catley - Carlson for your excellent report on the "Recommendations for Action". These very specific and practical recommendations for action and theadopted Ministerial Declaration have helped the conference to a very successful outcome.

Now we have a first concrete framework for action. The faster and the better we are able to implement this at national level, the more credible our input in Johannesburg will be. I hope that youwill take the constructive spirit that has prevailed in the negotiations here in Bonn back to your home countries and convince your government, your company, your NGO that the proposed procedureswill be of long-term benefit to all. I would like to highlight four particularly important aspects:

1. Efficient water management is the key element in the fight against poverty and for sustainable development.
2. Efficient water management largely depends on good governance.
3. There are many advantages to the so-called "small-scale solution". Efficient water management can be best achieved in a decentralized approach, because local residents take the greatestinterest in the long-term availability of their water resources.
4. All stakeholders have to be included. The dialog between governments and industry, between governments and associations is extremely important. Cooperation and partnership between thegovernment and the different groups within civil society are necessary preconditions for sustainable water management. Most of all, all target groups have to be included, men and women alike. If itis necessary to give special training to the staff in order to implement this integrative approach, then this training must be provided. Efficient water management cannot be planned from abureaucratic ivory tower, nor can it be planned without the participation of the people concerned. It can only be done with the detailed knowledge of the men and women using this resource.

This is the only way of avoiding the mistakes of the past.

Any interference from outside will change the social balance locally, for better or for worse. This holds especially true for the water sector. We must therefore consider the heterogeneity of thelocal and regional population and the existing differences between male and female roles right from the beginning. We must carry out simulation runs to see if the planned initiative widens anexisting discrepancy, or whether it actually provides new short and long-term opportunities for the formerly disadvantaged.

Water projects, if approached properly, provide an outstandingly suitable instrument for giving girls and women free time they can spend on education and also on the generation of income. What isimportant, though, is to support this process in consensus with the local population by implementing a policy of gender equality also in other areas, such as in landownership legislation and in lawof succession.

Water projects entail opportunities for girls and women to assume a public role for themselves.

I trust in your dedicated commitment that by the time of the Johannesburg conference and the World Water Forum in Kyoto in 2003 we will be able to present some encouraging examples of how to linksustainable water management to the empowerment of women.

But as a minister of one of the industrialized countries I also want to address the homework that we have been assigned by this global conference. We must clean up the traces left behind by ourecological footprints, so that 1.2 billion people in the South that have insufficient access to water will be granted development opportunities.

This is why we in the North need to cooperate intensely with the manufacturing industry, with trade and marketing companies, with Local Agenda initiatives, NGOs, churches and unions in order toestablish sustainable consumption patterns. Just as an example, it is healthy to wear cotton, but it is not healthy for this planet to produce the amount of cotton needed for all the t-shirts andjeans that people in the North like to have in their closets.

It is not enough to show distress when watching films about the fields in Uzbekistan and the Aral Sea, which is increasingly getting smaller. Instead, we must give new shape to one of our favoritepastimes, shopping. Beautifully designed, unique and high-quality merchandise has to take the place of throw-away mass products. That way, we will protect jobs and our life support system, planetearth.

We will all be leaving Bonn with many suggestions and ideas. I am especially pleased that Nitin Desai intends to propose the form of cooperation and dialog practiced at this Freshwater Conferencein the context of the Multi Stake Holder Dialog as a model for preparing the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. I would like to end by thanking all participants who have helpedto advance this conference with their contributions.

A particular word of thanks goes to you, Mr. Desai. Through your active participation you have given much weight to this international preparatory conference and have moved it much closer to theUN preparation process than we ever could have done. I would also like to offer a most heartfelt word of thanks addressed to the members of the International Steering Committee which has given usvery competent support before and during the conference. Last but not least I thank the interpreters who have served as a reliable communicative bridge between the participants.

I wish you all a safe journey and I hope to see you again in Johannesburg!