The UNFPA Seminar titled "Asia’s Water in Danger – Population, Urban Development and Water Environment’" was held jointly by the UNFPA Tokyo Office and AUICK in Kobe’s International House on 1 June 2007. It was a chance for Kobe citizens and AUICK’s workshop participants to discuss global water issues in the presence of Dr. Sultan Aziz, the Director of the Asia-Pacific Division of UNFPA. Also present were Ms. Kiyoko Ikegami, Director of the UNFPA Tokyo Office and Mr. Michitada Sugahara, of the Environment Bureau of Kobe City Government. Students of all ages brought a youthful perspective, and an eagerness to compliment their international studies with further awareness of the issues discussed. Questions were taken from the audience after presentations from the participants, and Dr. Aziz spoke on population and environmental sustainability.

By the year 2020, over 60% of the world’s population, of which two thirds are in Asia, will live in urban areas. The continent’s 750 million young people and their need for education, access and information, can be seen as both an opportunity and a challenge. 

If governments choose to invest in skills, knowledge based ideas and technology; the young can drive sustained economic growth and development prosperity for the next 30 to 40 years. If not, the situation might be very different. Countries like Japan, India, Thailand, China and Vietnam can act as engines of economic advance, if they see their future in a broad, cross boundary sense, and not as isolated and driven by national interests. 

The economic maxim is that capitol moves across national boundaries, rather than labor. A lot of national policy adjustment is needed to accommodate the growth that we are anticipating in Asia, and to get people out of abject poverty - of which there are more in Asia than in Africa and Latin America combined.

Addressing the problems will help tackle the challenges - seven women or girls dying each minute due to complications related to pregnancy, or a person, usually female, being infected with HIV/AIDS every three seconds. We need organization, data, cultural relations and an understanding of our shared destiny. UNFPA has a one billion dollar sexual reproductive health program to support the gathering of data and programs about the needs of women and young girls, for example to ensure that violence against women ends. We have to work at a variety of different levels, for governments to change or make policies for sustainable development to be possible.

The UNFPA Seminar audience at Kobe’s International House

Following Dr. Aziz, Dr. Gayl D. Ness discussed the issues affecting and arising from Asia’s rapidly growing population, in the context of sanitation, water and the issues faced.

One of the major problems is to provide for safe water and adequate sanitation for the population. Here there are both wonderful opportunities and daunting challenges. The opportunities come from a world of new medical and public health technologies that dramatically reduce illness and death and greatly increase human welfare. Urbanization helps the process, especially for water and sanitation.

Asia has moved rapidly to increase availability of safe water to over 90% of its urban population, but only to about 75% of the rural population. Similarly, adequate sanitation is now extended to almost 80% of its urban population but to only 35% of its rural population.

These improved water and sanitation services have helped reduce diarrheal diseases, which are still the world’s fourth largest killer, especially of young children. There are some 3 million deaths annually and billions of cases of gastrointestinal diseases. Adequate sanitation and water can cut this figure by two-thirds.

The bad news, however, is that there are now some 75 new chemicals that can contaminate water sources and cause illness and death. Much work needs to be done to provide the technology for controlling those contaminants.

To TOP

Questions and Answers

Q: What effect does global warming have on water?

A: We are seeing changes in weather patterns, increased rainfall leading to flooding, landslides, rises in surface water, poor drainage, depleted reservoirs, contamination of groundwater, and not enough water recharging aquifers that can be tapped. Contaminated groundwater is very costly to pump and treat, and it is often used as drinking water. Even though water is increasing globally with the rising sea level, there is not enough that can be drunk - only 0.7 percent.

Q: Should there be more of a focus on rural areas, which have a minimal standard of living due to poverty?

A: We are aware of the urban/rural divide changing because urban areas are where the jobs are. But now, the majority of Asians are engaged in rural farm work. In China, for example, there is also a huge ‘moving population’ working in construction and booming industries, who have difficulties getting housing and health care, and who leave children and grandparents in rural areas who need access to welfare themselves. Then the ageing population is also a problem. But stopping people moving would be restricting their freedom. 

Poverty is an issue that we are all concerned about in Asia. The key words are ‘quality of life’ and ‘sustainable development’. They take a lot of work and commitment on investment from governments.

Q: What can we do as citizens to help people get water in these places?

A: Right now you’re doing the best thing that you can do. As you become educated, you must take responsibility for what your community and government do. We must be aware that we are all brothers and sisters, not concerned with shooting each other, but with sharing.  

Poor cities’ governments cannot provide water - Kobe couldn’t 50 years ago. Japan got rich, with resources and intelligent, humane policies to turn wealth into welfare. Many countries are wealthy but have low levels of welfare; others are not so wealthy but have better welfare systems. We must figure out the policies, institutions and political cultures that will take the wealth that we have and turn it into welfare. 

To make citizens aware of how much water has to be used just to clean wastewater, for every bowl of cooking oil discarded, 330 bathtubs of water have to be added for a fish to be able to live. 

Q: Can water be drunk directly from the tap in each of the nine participants’ countries?

Contamination and high costs of both treatment and infrastructure mean that water is not safe to drink directly from the tap in many of the countries represented.

Q: What is an effective water provision management system? Should water be privatized or provided for free?

A: In the case of Olongapo, members of parliament can’t get elected if they raise the price of water. So, it was decided to privatize water provision through a consortium that was not necessarily capitalist. A non-profit group managed the water, and the service improved. People said that water should be free, but it costs more money to bring the water from the river to a plant and then clean and send it to households with taps. Improvement costs money, and If nobody profits, there is no motivation. One opinion is that privatization is good if there is a very effective monitoring system, a franchise agreement with a regulatory industry to see which standards are met. In Olongapo, the criteria is that water must not cost more than 5% of the lowest income.

If water is provided free, it should be free to all, including slum-dwellers who are now often charged a very high proportion of their income for water. If governments give water provision contracts to the wrong parties, service will not be good. Privatization has to meet market disciplines, and a free market is not necessarily a private market. Water that is less costly to the poor and more costly to the rich is a good thing.

In Chittagong, 40 percent of the people are covered, 60 percent get water from other sources. Of the 40 percent, about 20 percent goes to slums, and it is free. There has to be a monitoring system so that not only the rich get free water. A well organized private company could be the right water provider.

In Weihai, governments didn’t have enough money to invest before privatization in 1990. Now, local governments sign contracts with private foreign companies or state owned companies. When there is private involvement in supply, profit is necessary, as investment is very costly. Privatizing water for free is an interesting idea, but it means that governments have to pay for water on behalf of the people. Now, in Weihai, the price of water is subsidized by the government, and the cost per cubic meter is about a quarter of that of bottled water.

Q: Water pollution is caused by growing economies and populations. Some countries are polluted by water so that the definition of safe water changes. What is a 21st Century definition of safe water?

A: There are two basic types of water. Household water has to be clean enough to safely touch, and drinking water has to be cleaner, so as not to affect the organs of the body.

Closing Remarks

Dr. Hirofumi Ando, the President of AUICK, then summed up the afternoon’s discourse.

Urbanization is progressing globally, and especially in Asia. It is a good thing, as it is the driving force for development. But it is also generating large numbers of poor people in the world, as well as in Asia. Half the world - nearly three billion people - live on less than two dollars per day. Many people don’t have sufficient safe water or access to reasonably good sanitation.

In Asia, 250 million people lived in urban areas in 1950. Now this figure is at 1,573 million, and it is set to increase to 2,679 million by 2025. Rising living standards is a good thing, but at the same time, water supplies are being depleted. This is related to poverty, and people are dying from poverty related diseases. 5000 women are dying each day, partly because of not having enough water - but this doesn’t become a big news issue. 

More money is needed for safe water, but like water, money is distributed so undemocratically. We spend more than 1,000 billion dollars on arms, 800 billion dollars on cigarettes, and 600 billion dollars on alcohol each year, so we can’t say that we don’t have enough money globally. As citizens, we can speak up about these global issues. For the future of the environment of all citizens, as individuals we can practice the 3Rs; we can reduce, recycle and reuse.

Seminar participants with local high school students