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1st Asian Pacific Water Summit

Report about participation of the Central Asian delegation in the 1st Asian Pacific Water Summit

Beppu, Japan
December 3–4, 2007

The First Asia-Pacific Water Summit was held with the support of the Japanese Government and was dedicated to “Water Security: Guidance and Obligations”. The main objective was to provide an opportunity for political leaders in the region to more deeply realize the significance of water-related problems in the region for achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals and organize a dialogue with all stakeholders on these problems during the summit in order to formulate this significance in form of specific actions for each country.

The idea of such event first occurred during the 4th World Water Forum (Mexico, March, 2006) upon initiative of the Japanese Water Forum’s President, the former Japanese Prime-Minister Rutaro Khoshimoto. After sudden and untimely death of Mr. Khoshimoto, this affair dedicated to solution of global water problems was take on by former Japanese Prime-Minister Yoshiro Mori, who is now the President of the Asia-Pacific Water Forum and the Head of Steering Committee of the First Asia-Pacific Water Summit (APWS).

The Steering Committee is comprised of: Ambassador of Singapore Prof. Tommi Kox; special UN ambassador on Millennium Development Goals in the Asia-Pacific region Mrs.Yerna Vitoyelar, and former executive chairman of Water Help program Mr. Rawi Narayan.

The meeting was attended by several Heads of state and governments, official delegations from 36 countries of the Asia-Pacific, including representatives of various international and regional organizations, financial institutions and businesses, civil society and non-governmental organizations, research and mass media.

Central Asia was represented by official delegations from the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Republic of Tajikistan and the Republic of Uzbekistan, as well as by the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea headed by its Chairman, the President of Tajikistan Emomali Rakhmon.

1st APWS was held in the exhibition center Â-Con Plaza. A ten-minute video-clip was demonstrated before the opening ceremony about water problems in the Asia-Pacific region, where 60 % of the world’s population lives (3,7 billion people), where each of five persons (0,7 billion people) does not have access to clean drinking water and more than half population (1,9 billion people) does not have access to sanitation facilities. At the same time, along with water shortage, the region has to confront with disasters becoming more frequent due to climate change, such as floods, catastrophic landslides, with huge human losses which account for 80% of the world’s water-related losses.

The opening ceremony of the 1st APWS followed a special program, with participation of His Imperial Majesty Crown Prince of Japan and His Royal Highness Prince of the Netherlands William Alexander, who had their floors after the opening speech of Mr. Yoshiro Mori, with welcome speeches and presentations dedicated to an exclusive importance of water-related problems for the world in general and the Asia-Pacific region in particular. Then, the Prime-Minister Yasuo Fukuda welcomed the Summit on behalf of the Japanese Government. He highlighted three main regional problems: drinking water supply and sanitation; water-related disasters; secured agricultural water supply, the solution of which he sought in implementation of integrated water resources management. Prof. Tommi Kox spoke on behalf of the Steering Committee of Asia-Pacific Water Forum and presented main points of Policy Brief document prepared and published specially for 1st APWS. The strategy and actions were determined according to this document in three priority themes:

A. Water financing and capacity building in order to increase investments in water and sanitation infrastructure, as well as in research, training and technique.

B. Water-related disaster management in order to reduce population vulnerability, as well as to provide population with water after any disaster.

C. Water for development and ecosystems in order to improve water productivity through conservation and stabilization of aquatic ecosystems.

Those priority themes are considered within five areas of key results:

  1. Knowledge and practices development.
  2. Local capacity development.
  3. Outreach strengthening.
  4. Investment and result monitoring.
  5. Forum and summit support.

The UN General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon in his video welcome spoke about utmost importance of water-related problems and the significance of this event.

Every speech during the official opening ceremony demonstrated water and climate change concerns and stressed an urgent need for the improvement of this situation by joint efforts and more active participation of society’s leaders.

The plenary session of the 1st APWS was started by the Heads of State and Government. First, the President of the Republic of Tajikistan Emomali Rakhmon took the floor. In his speech he underlined that the world development tendencies were such that value of water could be higher than the value of oil, gas, coal and other resources necessary for the sustainable future of every country and region.

While supporting APWF’s priorities in area of water financing and water disaster management improvement based on ecosystem approach, he noted an urgency of establishing regional and international emergency funds under UN umbrella in order to eliminate difficulties related to access to clean drinking water and render assistance in case of natural disasters. At the same time, he proposed to establish a Water Partnership of developed countries that would give target assistance to developing or poor countries in addressing water problems. For joining efforts in solving water problems, he proposed to initiate a special ministerial conference within the framework of UN’s General Assembly and develop and adopt International Water Convention.

As concerns the Republic of Tajikistan, he spoke about priority of hydropower development and called upon all interested parties to cooperate in developing these resources on equal and mutually beneficial basis. Similar approach was suggested for solving the problem of Sarez lake, which is subjected to break, through the establishment of international consortium to be dealing with the use of this lake for drinking water supply needs in Central Asian region. When touching global warming and intensive glacier melting in Tajikistan’s mountains, Emomali Rakhmon proposed to hold in the city of Dushanbe in 2008 an International conference on water-related disaster reduction.

As a follow-up of previous proposals of the Presidents of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, he spoke on a need to attribute to IFAS the status of UN institute and recognizing of the Aral Sea basin as a priority pilot region for achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. In order to establish close cooperation between the Aral Sea basin and the APWF and to increase support to water management improvement, he proposed to create a Central Asian sub-regional center in the city of Dushanbe.

Then, the leaders of Asia-Pacific island states such as Kiribary, Palau, Nauru, Tuvalu and the Federal States of Micronesia that are threatened by expected sea-level rise and cyclones becoming more frequent due to climate change. The Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Bhutan described how the climate change in his country leads to rapid glacier depletion and more frequent floods inundating downstream areas of residence.

Vice Prime-Minister of the Kyrgyz Republic Dosbul Nurullu took the floor last and addressed issues of environmental security using as an example a need for rehabilitation of Mailisay uranic tailing dumps that threatened both Kyrgyzstan and other neighboring states. Concerning water problems in the Central Asia, he touched upon Toktogul reservoir as an object serving the needs of downstream countries to the prejudice of national Kyrgyzstan’s interests through flooding of lands and huge maintenance costs of the hydropower project. At the same time, he proposed to support establishment of Water and Power Academy in the city of Bishkek and hold water-power summit in partnership with APWF.

Upon completion of the plenary meeting, parallel sessions were held:

  December 3, 2007

  1. Climate change, glaciers and water resources in the Himalayas. This session addressed issues of climate change and snow-glacier storage reduction that became particularly pronounced in the last decade. In order to study these processes and prevent their negative consequences for water resources, it is necessary to enhance regional cooperation in collection and exchange of information on monitoring and assessment of climate changes.
  2. Leaders’ mandate for water actions. Leaders of enterprises and businesses have gathered together at round table in order to discuss AP region’s development scenario, focusing on challenges that had growing impact on their activities and the society as a whole. The session considered a number of good examples and political recommendations calling upon leaders of businesses to support initiatives aimed at solution of water problems.
  3. Monitoring of investments and results for water. The accumulated experience indicates to an urgent need for improvement of policies for regional and national monitoring of investments and achieved results, and this should be linked with priority issues, such as investing and impact on IWRM, water supply and sanitation.

  December 4, 2007

  1. Regional launch of international sanitation year 2008. The session’s participants stated that sanitation was a key point in achievement of MDGs. They called upon the national leaders to focus efforts on more efficient implementation of Khashimoto Action Plan on sanitation. They also requested the Japanese Government to include sanitation in the agenda of G8 in Tokyo in 2008.
  2. Dialogue on water and climate for small islands. Reporters of this session indicated to vulnerability of aquatic ecosystems in small island states and to great importance of efficient water management for them in context of climate change. Discussions were focused on shift in paradigm and transfer from elimination of consequences to prevention and management of water disasters.
  3. View for guaranteed water security in the Aral Sea basin – cooperation against competition. The session was moderated by the Chairman of the World Water Council Loic Fauchon. The reporter of the session was the head of UNESCO’s Hydrological program Mr. Saloshee Nagi. According to the earlier adopted agenda, the President of the Republic of Tajikistan took the floor first, the Chairman of IFAS Emomali Rakhmon and then ICWC members spoke – A.D.Ryabtsev, B.T.Koshmatov, Sh.R.Khamrayev, S.Yokubzon and acting chairman of EC IFAS S.Rakhimov. A message dedicated to environmental problems was communicated by the Azerbaidjan’s Minister of Environment and Natural Resources Khusseingulu Seyid Bagirov. The participants spoke about exposure of the Central Asian region to various water-related disasters and that becoming more frequent floods and droughts, mudflows, avalanches and landslides caused considerable economic damage to the countries annually. It is necessary to elaborate common approaches and joint actions in order to solve water issues, including the global problem of the Aral Sea and Prearalie. This would require urgent increase of investments, especially in rehabilitation of outdated and inoperational water infrastructure. There are certain difficulties in harmonization of water needs among different economic sectors, such as irrigation, hydropower, and environmental protection, particularly under conditions of transboundary water use. Nevertheless, the accumulated positive experience of regional cooperation in the Aral Sea basin shows that exactly political will of the Heads of State is one of major factors for achievement of sustainable water development.
  4. Water disaster management. The session was aimed at integration of water disaster risk reduction approaches into national development plans. The participants concluded that adaptation to increased risks related to climate change is the most important priority.
  5. Water for development and ecosystems. Discussions were focused on how to ensure water supply for various economic sectors, taking into account a need for development and conservation of the environment. The participants acknowledged an importance of supporting local actors and developing skills of good governance for creation of win-win conditions.
  6. Leadership for guaranteeing water security in the Asia-Pacific region: knowledge, financing, and capacity building. The session’s participants concluded that investments in water development imply investing of poverty eradication. Besides, development of various financing mechanisms was discussed such as cost sharing among the governments and water users and use of additional resources as formed through current rapid economic growth for urgent activities in sanitation and agriculture.
  7. Capacity building for local actions. A number of concrete initiatives, including establishment of capacity development centers for situation improvement at local level was discussed. Such centers will serve for active cooperation with various NGOs, local authorities and the general public in support of three priority themes of APWF.

The final part of the 1st APWS included reports of the session, presentation of the Summit’s general report, announcing of the message from Beppu, presentation of the Turkey’s representative with invitation to the 5th WWF in 2009, addresses of representative from American (Brazil) and European (Denmark) continents with information about similar regional summits and of Singapore’s representative about 2nd APWS in 2008.

Final speeches were forwarded on behalf of the Japanese Government by Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Tetzutso Fuyushiba and on behalf of APWF BY Yoshiro Mori.

Work under the summit was aimed at achieving progress in addressing of above three priority themes within ATWF’s five key result areas. Moreover, the more important thing was to stress responsibilities of the governments for the state and use of water resources and to induce the Summit’s participants and especially the leaders and decision makers to recognize the significance of water problems in the region and bring them higher to the top political level.