Shanghai (China) May 30- June 1, 2007

UN-Water was invited to participate to the board-member meeting of UNSGAB, held in Shanghai from 30 May to 1st of June, and to report on the status of UN-Water progress and the action plan for the biennium 2007-08. The organization is linked to the UNSGAB through the Hashimoto Action Plan (HAP), that was the first compendium of actions provided by the UNSGAB and takes the name from the Mr Ryutaro Hashimoto, former prime minister of Japan and 1st Chair of UNSGAB.
The HAP was presented at the 4th World Water Forum in New Mexico (March 2006) and afterword it was circulated by the former UN Secretary General to the DGs of the various UN Agencies and, in turn, from the DGs to the various Departments and Divisions, and very often they make references to UN-Water to undertake some specific tasks, especially those related to monitoring and reporting.

The main porpouse of UN-Water partecipation to the meeting was to update the UNSGAB on the progress and plan of work of UN-Water, the actions taken that relates more specifically to the Hashimoto Action Plan (HAP), and participate in the discussion of the Asian Dialog on Water Supply and Sanitation.

UNSGAB is willing to interact with the various working group of UN-Water, especially the one on Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), on Monitoring and on Country-level UN Coordination. Exchange of documents and links to the respective web pages will be established. Close interactions will be undertaken with UN-DESA, as acting as Secretariat for both UNSGAB and UN-Water.

One of the most important issues of the meeting have been the access to clean water and sanitation in Asia. A huge proportion of the population in Asia is living in conditions that pose high risks both to their personal health to their environments. It is essential for economic and social development in Asia to take action to achieve breakthrough in access to water and sanitation.
Clean water and sanitation are deeply and inextricably connected to the achievement of national development goals, and to virtually all the MDGs, in particular those involving the environment, education, gender equality and the reduction of child mortality and poverty.

The Asian Dialogue on May 31st, 2007 in Shanghai is the second of the series of regional dialogues.  Asian Ministers and other key participants of the region are invited to engage themselves in purposeful suggestions of achievable results to Asian challenges to advance water and sanitation agenda.
Participants in the dialogue discussed these strategic priority areas for Governments, Regional Institutions and Asian civil society and suggested what actions by UNSGAB and by representatives of governments and key institutions in Asia could achieve breakthrough in this area – and move the world further toward the MDGs on water and sanitation.  

Pasquale Steduto, Chief, Water Unit, FAO and Chair of UN-Water presented a background on UN-Water and explained their thematic initiative in the areas of sanitation, transboundary waters, IWRM, pollution, valuing water, capacity building, water scarcity, water and women, financing water, and extreme events.

A few priority areas of collaboration with UN-Water such as IYS, Decade for Water for Life, monitoring and reporting, and IWRM were identified. Board expressed satisfaction about the visible strengthening of UN-Water and asked Secretariat to regularly report activities and discussion of UN-Water at Board meetings. UNSGAB members thanked Mr. Steduto for the comprehensive report and discussed possible areas of collaboration.