Speech By Mrs. Muna Hider
Resident Representative, a.i.
United Nations Development Programme
Official Launch of the Human Development Report 2006
Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis”
Radission SAS Hotel, 5 December 2006
Your Royal Highness Princess Basma Bint Talal
Your Excellency Muhammad Zafer Al-Aalem, Minister of Water and Irrigation
Your Excellency Mr. Maher Madadhah, Secretary General of Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation on behalf of the Minister
Royal Highnesses and Excellencies
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am honored and pleased to welcome you to this celebration, which we have organized on the occasion of the launch of the 17th Human Development Report, entitled, “Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis.”
I would like to first welcome Her Royal Highness Princess Basma Bint Talal, our Honorary Human Development Ambassador, who has always privileged us with accepting to sponsor under her auspices the launches of most of our human development reports. On this occasion, I would like to submit to you our profuse thanks for once again patronizing and attending this ceremony. We wholeheartedly appreciate your continuous work in the area of human development, as well as your steadfast and outstanding commitment to the values and thoughts that this development entails.
I would also like to welcome and thank both His Excellency the Minister of Water and Irrigation, Mr. Muhammad Zafer Al-Alem and H.E. Mr. Maher Madahah, Secretary-General of Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, for honoring us with their presence.
Honored Guests,
Human development reports are usually divided into two main parts. The first is substantive and focuses each year on a specific issue that threatens human development, while the other is statistical and evaluates the situation of human development in the different States against what is called “Human Development Index (HDI)”. It does so by looking into life expectancy, adult literacy rates, income levels, and overall enrolment in primary, secondary and tertiary education.
As far as the statistical part is concerned, I would like to point out that the figures in this report reveal deep-rooted inequality throughout the world. For example, the income of the richest 500 persons worldwide is now more than the combined incomes of the poorest 416 million persons. The authors of the report stress that one of the greatest future challenges to human development is to reduce the amount of disregard accorded to the manifestations of gross inequality, which has characterized globalization since the early 1990s, and to make sure that this growing prosperity expands opportunities for the majority, not only for a privileged minority.
I am pleased to announce that the statistics in this year’s report, which are attributable to 2004 data, reveal that Jordan is still making progress. The Kingdom’s HDI for this year stands at 0.760, compared to 0.753 last year. Thus, Jordan is now ranked 86 among the 177 States, compared with 90 last year. This ranks the country above the median HDI for the Arab States and better than the median for the developing countries and the median for average human development states which Jordan belongs to.
On the substantive side, the main message of the 2006 report is that water security is a main component of the broader concept of human security. The report indicates that water security generally means striving for securing for every person a permanent and reliable source of sufficient safe water at affordable prices for him/her to lead a healthy, dignified and productive life, while safeguarding the ecological systems that equally provide, and rely upon water.
Honored guests,
This year’s report goes beyond the global water crisis to state that the real crisis does not lie in the scarcity of water, but is linked to poverty, inequality and the unbalanced inter-power relationships, in addition to rickety water management policies that aggravate the scarcity of water.
Even though water is the artery of life and a basic human right, we find, however, that, unlike wars and natural disasters, the crisis of deprivation of clean water and adequate sanitation facilities does not arouse much interest in the media. Like hunger, depriving people of access to water and safe sanitation creates a silent crisis that creates much suffering for the poor.
Indeed, it is saddening to know that, in our age, which has witnessed tangible progress at all levels, more than one billion people do not as yet enjoy their right to access clean water. Furthermore, there are 2.6 billion persons who lack access to adequate sanitation facilities. Each year, we witness the death of 1.8 million children to diarrhea — a disease that can be prevented with clean water and adequate latrines. More than 443 million school days are lost because of diseases related to the scarcity of clean water. At any one given time, around 50 percent of people in the developing countries suffer from health problems resulting from the scarcity of water and the lack of sanitation facilities.
These human costs are further aggravated by the fact that the water and sanitation crisis contributes to widening the gender gap and preventing the empowerment of women. Millions of women and young girls are forced to spend long hours in collecting and carrying water, thus reducing the opportunities and choices made available to them. In Mozambique, Senegal and the rural areas of east Uganda, it is customary for women to walk more than 10 kilometers a day and spend 15–17 hours a week in order to bring water.
The report reveals huge disparities in prices. The poorer a person, the higher the price her/she pays for clean water. For example, the average amount of money spent on water by the poorer households in El Salvador, Jamaica and Nicaragua is more than 10 percent of the household income. By contrast, it would be an economic suffering if more than 3 percent of the household income in Britain is spent on water. The report also shows that more than 660 million of those who lack sanitary systems live on a daily income of only two or less dollars.
On the other hand, the report points out that, the vicious competition for water, in addition to the dangers posed by climatic change, is now the gravest threat to sustainable human development. The increasing demand by the industrial sector, the proliferation of urban areas, population growth, and pollution are causing unprecedented overstrains to water systems and agriculture. In this case the biggest losers are small farmers, particularly women, who enjoy the least level of rights and suffer from competition by the large producers.
We should not disregard the subject of shared water in the report, which indicates that the management of shared water may be a force for peace or for conflict. But concerned countries policies will determine the path. Within this frame, the report calls on countries to substitute unilateral actions with multi-lateral cooperation and to make concerns regarding human development, not power and politics, in the heart of the dialogue.
Honored guests,
Undoubtedly, the issue of providing safe water and adequate sanitation is detrimental to human capabilities and to the quest for achieving the Millennium Development Goals, as each of the eight goals is linked to the other. If we fail in achieving the goal related to access to water and sanitation, the hope for achieving the other goals will inevitably diminish.
This crisis impedes human progress and curbs the economic order, where large sectors of humanity are forced to live in poverty, weakness and insecurity. It is noteworthy that the number of those who die because of diseases resulting from this crisis is larger than the number of those killed by any war.
In this context, and even though Jordan is one of the more-suffering countries because of the crisis of lack of water, I would like, on behalf of the United Nations Development Program, to commend the Jordanian Government’s efforts in this area as 93 percent of Jordan’s population have sustainable access to improved sanitation facilities and 97 percent have access to improved water resources. In addition, Jordan has embarked on implementing a policy for the management of groundwater. The Government also launched innovative public awareness campaigns to acquaint farmers in the rural areas with strategies for reducing health risks related to the treatment of waste water and the benefits of the use of drip irrigation.
Honored Guests,
Last but not least, and based on all what I mentioned, it is with no doubt that we all agree that success in confronting the water and sanitation challenge will be an incentive for achieving progress in the education and public health sectors and in alleviating poverty — two factors that can either establish, or destroy human development. Access to water goes beyond being a basic human right and a true indicator of human growth. It enhances potentials for man’s enjoyment of the other human rights, which as a result will develop his sustainable livelihood.
Thank you