By Reuters
March 22, 1998
Paris - A United Nations conference on managing the world's limited fresh water supplies agreed yesterday that water should be paid for as a commodity rather than be treated as an essential staple to be supplied free. The three-day conference, attended by environment ministers and officials from 84 countries, said costs should remain low and the poor must be assured of access to fresh water.
The conference's appeal for more market forces prompted a note of caution from socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, who addressed the meeting on its final day. Jospin urged prudence in dealing with a substance that was not ''a product like any other.'' ''You have renounced the old belief, which held on for far too long, that water could only be free because it fell from the heavens,'' he told the conference. But he said the switch to a more market-oriented way of dealing with water ''should be prudent.''
The conference's final declaration said the problem of water shortages was so important that governments would have to utilize private funds for the vast investments needed for networks and treatment plants to assure future supplies. After hearing that one-quarter of the world's 5.9 billion people have no access to clean drinking water and water shortages threatened world peace, delegates concluded that ''the gradual introduction of a system to recover the direct and indirect costs of services should be encouraged.'' Poorer states have argued that water should be free.
President Jacques Chirac told the delegates on Friday that water prices had to rise. ''No more barren wrangling over the market versus the state,'' he said. ''Water has a price and zero price is a forewarning of scarcity.'' Chirac estimated it would cost $400 billion to set up reliable water networks around the world and told attendees that governments alone could not foot the bill.
According to the World Bank, states have pledged $60 billion to $80 billion over the next 10 years. Chirac also called for the creation of an ''International Academy for Water.''
France wants the Kenya-based UN Environment Program to take over responsibility for water issues, but the United States opposes giving the issue to a single body.
Water consumption was doubling every 20 years, 50 percent of water in main cities leaked away, and a quarter of the world's population had no access to clean water, Chirac said.
''If we so decide, within a few years we can provide every Third World village, especially those in the drylands of Africa, with lasting access to drinkable water,'' he said. ''If we so decide, within a few years we can provide all city dwellers, including those in poor neighborhoods, with drinking water and sanitation.''
