Asia-Pacific leaders tackle water-related problems

Dec 4, 2007, 10:04 GMT

Tokyo - Leaders of Asia-Pacific nations and territories agreed Tuesday to accelerate their efforts to tackle urgent water-related problems in the region.

The First Asia-Pacific Water Summit invited about 300 government and industry leaders as well as environmental experts to the southern Japanese city of Beppu to discuss water sanitation, natural disasters, rising sea levels and melting glaciers caused by global warming.

On the summit's second and final day, some participants showed frustration at the slow reaction of the region's governments as concerns mount over rising sea levels.

Higher sea levels, for instance, have caused fresh- and saltwater to mix and have made it difficult for the island nation of Kiribati in the central Pacific to secure safe drinking water.

Others pointed out the need to implement more technological and financial support to prevent droughts and floods.

Summit participants called on the private and public sectors to better cooperate in securing drinking water in the region, where deaths by diarrhoea are still common.

'Sanitation and hygiene have in fact more impacts on disease rates than water quantities do,' Clarissa Brocklehurst, coordinator for the UN Water Task Force on Sanitation, was quoted as saying by the Kyodo News Agency.

The participants also sought political intervention in resolving water-related problems in the region and proposed to have a similar discussion at the Group of Eight summit of leading industrialized countries in July in the northern Japanese town of Toyako.

Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said at the summit's opening ceremony Monday that he hoped to take 'enormous power and wisdom' from the meetings to the G8 summit.

On Monday, the leaders called for enhancing regional cooperation and commitment to improve water management amid increasing natural disasters caused by global warming.

More than 80 per cent of the deaths caused by water-related disasters in the world between 2001 and 2005 occurred in the Asia-Pacific region, summit organizers said.

About 700 million people live without access to safe drinking water while 1.9 billion people are without hygienic toilet facilities in the region, they added.