Washington (USA) 14 April, 2007

FAO Director-General, Mr Jaques Diouf was invited to attend the high-level meeting on “Expanding access to sanitation and water supply: What does it take?”, a side event co-hosted by DFID, UNDP and the World Bank.

Mr Diouf proposed Mr. Pasquale Steduto, Chief of FAO Water Resources and Chair of UN-Water to represent FAO.

The main objective of the meeting was: to bring together developed and developing country governments and development agencies committed to raising the profile of clean water and sanitation as critical to the achievement of the MDGs;

Another objective was to get a stronger sense of what the challenges are (especially in sub-Saharan Africa) and share practical idea for action; and to identify next steps including future opportunities to turn these ideas into practical action.

UN-Water expressed its interest in taking on the task of preparing the “Annual Global Monitoring Report on Water and Sanitation”, as indicated by the Global Action Plan of DFID.