Indonesia to send delegation to World Water Forum

Indonesia to send delegation to World Water Forum

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Minister of Resettlement and Regional Infrastructure Soenarno
will lead an Indonesian delegation to the 3rd World Water Forum
(WWF) in Kyoto, Japan from March 16 to 23.

State Minister for the Environment Nabiel Makarim, Minister of
Agriculture Bungaran Saragih and Minister of Forestry M. Prakosa
and a number of senior officials will accompany Soenarno,
according to Director General for Water Resources Roestam
Sjarief.

Roestam, who will also attend the WWF, said the government had
prepared a country report containing its achievements and
problems with water policy and planned to seek several
partnerships with other countries in the WWF.

"WWF is a big forum equal to World Summit on Sustainable
Development, so this is our chance to speak up," he told the
Jakarta Post.

According to him, the country report would basically respond
to seven challenges on water issues, including the provision of
water for food security, water for various interests, managing
floods, and reforming water policy.

For example, he said, the government would present to the WWF
its success in developing some 7.2 million hectares of irrigated
farming lands across the country out of the country's total
farming land of 11 million hectares.

The government would also disclose to the forum about the
ongoing water policy reform through the water resource bill and
its derivative regulations that would allow wide participation of
private firms in managing water, according to Roestam.

However, he did not elaborate on the partnership scheme to be
sought by Indonesia at the forum.

The WWF, which will see around 8,000 people consisting of
scientists, NGO activists, government officials, will focus on a
global water crisis and related issues, for instance, water and
gender, energy, food, agriculture, environment, poverty,
sanitation, pollution, climate change and cultural diversity.

Of the participants, more than 100 ministers are expected to
discuss water crises at the Forum, the World Bank said.

Issues on financing and participation of the private sector in
the construction of water project infrastructure are expected to
be discussed in a dialog between Forum participants and the
ministers at Kyoto International Conference Hall, on March 21,
2003.

A United Nations report said earlier this month that world
water reserves were drying up fast and booming populations,
pollution and global warming would combine to cut the average
person's water supply by a third in the next 20 years.

The report, compiled by the World Water Assessment Program of
UNESCO, criticized political leaders for failing to take action
and in some cases, disputing the very existence of a water
crisis.

More than 2.2 million people die each year from diseases
related to contaminated drinking water and poor sanitation, the
report said, but evidence of the problem was being ignored.

By 2050, water scarcity will affect between two billion and
seven billion people out of a projected total of 9.3 billion,
depending in part on what measures political leaders take to
tackle the crisis, the report said.

The United Nations has declared the year 2003 as the UN
International Year of Freshwater.

Meanwhile, Nila Ardhiane of the Indonesian Forum on
Globalization (INFOG), who will also attend the WWF, said the
government should not name its report as the country report
because its formulation had never included NGO input, and thus
did not represent the country.

She also urged the government to strongly consider not
privatizing water resources.