E-conference 20 Oct - 7 Nov 2003: Challenges of international goals in the water sector

Background

At the World Summit on Social Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg in 2002, countries have agreed to commit themselves to a target of 2015 for reducing by half the proportion of people who do not have access to basic sanitation. The new commitment on sanitation comes as a companion target to the already agreed upon goal of halving the proportion of people who lack access to clean water, which is one of the UN Millennium Development Goals that was reaffirmed at the WSSD.

This e-conference aimed to find out and clarify the present needs, demands, aspirations and policies of the development co-operation partners of Finland in the light of these latest international sector goals. It was organised as part of a dialogue process, in which sector stakeholders at decision and implementation levels had a say in how they see that these goals should be reflected in the new Finnish development policy in the water sector.

It was organised by: IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre on behalf of the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and facilitated by: Heikki Wihuri and Marielle Snel of IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, Delft, the Netherlands and Jyrki Wartiovaara of Jywaconsulting, Helsinki, Finland

Based on the results of this e-conference a further face-to-face consultation opportunity will be arranged for the most active participants of this initial e-conference. This consultation process will discuss and debate the preliminary conclusions and recommendations. Following this, the IRC team will prepare the final report, which will be used as a building block for the formulation of the new Finnish Water Sector Development Co-operation Policy. A summary of this will be shared with participants of the e-conference.

Themes

The discussion ran for three weeks focusing on:

Background paper and case studies

A background paper presents challenging statements and pose critical questions on which participants can reflect, discuss and send their feedback.

For further details, go the project website There you will find various documents including a description of the review and its associated issues, and the full background paper