UNITED NATIONS, April 30 (UPI) -- The U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development said Friday nations must speed up work now to reach 2015 goals on water, sanitation and shelter.
"The international community is not on track and efforts must be scaled up," said Environment Minister Borge Brende, chairman of 12th session of the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development. "Achieving the targets is doable."
Brende wasn't the only minister. He told reporters about 100 ministers attended at least part of the two-week meeting at U.N. World Headquarters in New York.
The agreed millennium development goals want governments worldwide to provide 1.6 billion people with safe drinking water and 2 billion people with basic sanitation by 2015. By 2020, the living conditions of 100 million slum dwellers would have to be substantially improved.
The World Health Organization earlier this week released the report, "Evaluation of the Costs and Benefits of Water and Sanitation Improvements at the Global Level," which estimated the additional global investment needed would be $11.3 billion per year.
The economic benefits from each dollar invested range from $3 to $34 -- or even as much as $60 -- depending on the region. An $11.3 billion investment could bring an $84 billion return, the report said.
In the calculations, savings of time from locating water and sanitation facilities more conveniently for people were valued at the minimum hourly wage rate for each country.
"The time-bound targets are specific, practical and realistic. They are technically feasible and financially affordable. For too many years we have had too little action," Brende told the closing meeting of the commission. "Let us all embark on a decade of implementation."
The commission was the first substantive review of progress made to reach targets set at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. The targets include many of the U.N. millennium development goals set in 2000.
Challenges identified included improving access to safe drinking water, ensuring effective water management and infrastructure investment, bettering regulatory frameworks, and strengthening local governance. The role of women in making water policies was also seen as essential, Brende said.
The non-negotiating nature of the meeting was a plus.
"The agenda has been specific. The interventions have been substantive and the participation broad based. The discussions have been interactive," Brende said. "Most importantly, we have focused on solutions. We focused on how we are going to make a difference."
The large number of ministers and range of portfolios showed heightened interest following Johannesburg.
In his opening remarks to the meeting, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on the panel to be a "Watchdog, alert to threats and fearless in sounding alarms. We look to you for coherent policy making."
Brende welcomed the role, saying he was at first hesitant to use the word, thinking, "monitor was polite." But, "watchdog," he prefers.
Among the particular goals reviewed were halving by 2015 the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation and significantly improving the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020.
At the opening of the high-level segment, Qatar Finance Minister Yussef Kamal, represented the G-77 group of some 130 mainly developing countries, plus China. He said there was a need for a more enabling international environment as well as increased official development.
Martin Cullen, Ireland's environment minister spoke on behalf of the European Union and the countries acceding to the EU. He emphasized integrating water and sanitation in studies.
Paula Dobriansky, U.S. undersecretary of state for global affairs, underscored the need to release the energy of public-private partnerships.
Koike Yuriko, environment minister of Japan, focused on the issue of safe water provision and emphasized the importance of fostering partnerships and accepting ownership and responsibility as a global community for water resources.
In his summary, Brende said ministers valued shared "experiences and best practices" as well as "constraints, obstacles and challenges faced."
He added that targets for water, sanitation and human settlements and achieving the poverty eradication target play a crucial role for sustaining economic growth.
The millennium goals call for reducing by half the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day and reducing by half the number of people who suffer from hunger.
An estimated 1.2 billion people live in the developing world on less than $1 a day.
Many delegations stressed the need for governments to address sanitation in proposals submitted to the World Bank and in their national development plans. Improved regulatory standards, increased development aid to build sanitation infrastructure, and transfer of relevant technologies to developing countries were also seen as important needs, Brende said.
In the area of human settlements, ensuring security of property tenure for the poor was a prerequisite for people in need of funding to improve their homes. Women also should have legal recognition of their rights to property and inheritance, he said.
The importance of cooperation between slum communities and local authorities in upgrading existing slums was stressed, Brende said.
Some delegates said paying more attention to the development of rural areas might reduce the pull of the rural poor to urban slums.
