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WWF pledges action on water

But rift surfaces over statement

AFP, Istanbul
A seven-day focus on the world's water crunch wound up here yesterday with a pledge by more than 100 countries to strive to provide clean water and proper sanitation for billions in need and shore up defences against drought and flood.
Ministers and delegation chiefs endorsed the declaration, coinciding with World Water Day, at the end of the biggest-ever conferenceon the planet's crisis of freshwater.
But some countries criticised the cornerstone outcome of (he fifth World Water Forum (WWF) as flawed while activists dismissed the event itself as a "trade show."
“The world is facing rapid and unprecedented global changes, including population growth, migration, urbanisation, climate change, desertification, drought, degradation and land use, economic and diet changes," the non-binding statement said.
It set out a roster of recommendations for action, including FROM PAGE 16
greater cooperation to ease disputes over water, measures to address floods and drought, better management of water resources and curbing pollution of rivers, lakes and aquifers.
"The ministerial declaration... is an important document that will serve as guidelines at government level," said Turkish Environment Minister Veyse) Eroglu, whose country hosted the meeting.
A number of countries, including Spain, France and several nations from Latin America and Africa, tried in vain to have the document recognise access to safe drinking water and sanitation as "a basic human right," rather than a "basic human need" -- a textual change with political and legal ramifications.
”We are saddened... wc have been denied theopportunityof making changes to the statement," said an Ethiopian delegate.
"There was a strongconsensus that the right to water is not adequately considered in the draft ministerial declaration," a Uruguayan delegate said, reporting on a roundtable session.
The World Water Forum is held every three years, and has gained in importance as a meeting place for debating the globe's amplifying problems of freshwater.
At least 25,000 policymakers, water specialists and grassroots workers took part in this year's event, a record attendance.
Campaigners representing the rural poor, the environment and organised labour on Saturday attacked the Forum as a vehicle for water privatisation and called it for to be placed under the UN flag.
"We demand that the allocation of water be decided in an open, transparent and
democratic forum rather than in a trade show for the world's large corporations," said Maude Barlow, senior advisor to the president of the UN General Assembly.
The Forum is staged by the World Water Council, a Frenchbased organisation whose funding comes in large part from the water industry.
Around 880 million people do not have access to decent sources of drinking water, while 2.5 billion people do not have access to proper sanitation, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said in a report onTbesday.
By 2030, the number of people living under severe water stress is expected to rise to 3.9 billion, a tally that does not include the impacts of global warming, according to the OECD.
"Water means life but water can also become a threat to livelihood when we face extreme events such as floods and drought. These threats have been spreading and intensifying as a result of climate change," said Francisco Nunes Correia, Portugal's environment minister.