“Water Management Ought to be Central in Development Planning”

Remarks by Hon. David Kilgour, M.P.
Edmonton-Mill Woods-Beaumont
World Water Day Media Conference
Canada and the World Pavilion
Ottawa
22 March 2005

Leonardo da Vinci once said, “With time, and water, everything changes.”  His observation eloquently captures the biological and spiritual essentiality of water, as well as its role as a catalyst to progress. It holds particularly true in the context of community development. With 80% of all sicknesses and diseases in the world attributed to unsafe water and inadequate sanitation—we, policy makers, NGOs and civil society groups, must do more to recognize water as an inherent precursor to sustainable public health. One of the greatest weaknesses in development efforts worldwide today is the failure to put water management at the forefront of development planning, acknowledging it’s interconnectedness with food production, sanitation, labour division, disease prevention, and industrial growth.
 
It’s time to show more support for organizations like WaterCan, which implement locally-attuned, technologically-appropriate, community operated, sustainable projects. Sadly, water re-habilitation, irrigation and drilling projects make up a startlingly small percentage of development efforts around the world. In Chad, for example, where roughly 27% of the population has access to potable water, a mere 12% of all internationally-funded development projects focus on providing access to potable water or clean-water management.
 
One could argue that the root of this devastating oversight lies in the fact that water is largely taken for granted. North American society, for example, is based on an abundance of resources, primarily because we are blessed with tremendous natural resources. Even in cases where we are without, such as the Palliser Triangle in Prairie Canada, we have the technology and wealth to divert and transport it from other areas. Thus, our profusion of water shapes our cultural perceptions of it.
 
Furthermore, our consumption patterns clearly reflect our abundance and access; Canadians, for example, use over 100 times the amount of water that most Africans use and most of us will never have to experience the reality of having no clean water. It’s hard for us to even imagine such a harsh reality. Magdalene Creskey, my research assistant, who spent a year working in Tombwa—a small, desertous coastal town in southern Angola, was told upon arrival in the village that it had not rained for nearly two years. This town, with a population of over 35 000, has two communal water pumps, which means that most people get their water from pits dug in the sand, filled with green, murky water, and carrying all varieties of bacteria. This town, which was receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars of aid in building materials and school supplies did not have one clean water project—this despite the fact that two out of every ten children were dying of diarrhea due to bacterial infections from the water.
 
Certainly, there is a great deal to learn from experiencing and discussing alternate “resource realities,” such as those in sub-Saharan Africa, in an effort to show Canadians the overwhelming need for effective water-management strategies within the development sector.
 
I hope that on this day, World Water Day, Canadians, and people around the world, take a moment to think about the one billion people on this earth who do not have access to the very essence of life. May our policies and development dollars begin to address this fundamental need.
 
Thank You.
Merci Beaucoup.