Saturday, November 11, 2006

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (GINA): Several interventions by the Guyanese government to improve the lives of its citizens have been recognised by the United Nations, and reflected in its Human Development Report of 2006, which shows that Guyana has moved up four notches.

The report launched on Thursday in South Africa, titled “Beyond Scarcity: Power Poverty and the Global Water Crisis”, indicated that from the position of 107 in 2005 Guyana has moved to 103.

UNDP Country representative (acting), Carla Khammar, at the launching of the report on Friday said Guyana should be proud of its accomplishment.

“This achievement clearly reflects the development efforts of the Government; it’s a moment of pride for Guyana.”

Khammer said the selection of the theme is quite timely and fundamental to human development, since water is an issue that profoundly influences human potential and progress towards the UNDP’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to be achieved by 2015.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Rudy Insanally, said for Guyana, Human Development rights encompass political, social, economic, and civil rights. Addressing the issue of water in the Guyana context, he said, “For us in Guyana the issue is not scarcity of water but rather its effective management. The key to environmental sustainability is indeed as the reports states, effective through the development of a national human resource capacity.”

He said that most of the water on earth is salt water and that only about two and a half percent is fresh water, as such, “the scarcity of potable water is thus a clear and present danger and one that we must confront resolutely.”

Guyana over the past 13 years has been working towards ensuring potable water for all Guyanese and has been channelling significant amounts of resources towards the achievement of this goal.

This year the water sector was allocated $1.5 billion in the National budget with $240M of that sum allocated for service connections, implementation of the hinterland Water Strategy, construction of ground storage tanks, procurement of hardware and software, and development of new networking systems.

Government has over the past several years significantly improved access to potable water especially in areas that were previously unserved. About 55 wells were dug in hinterland communities and 20 pumps installed.

Many other projects are set to come on stream shortly that would significantly improve access. These include the Corriverton Water Project, installation of storage tanks and water treatment plants under the South Georgetown Water project, upgrading and maintenance of the hinterland water distribution system, installation of solar panels in Regions 7 and 8 and drilling more boreholes in villages in Region 9.

In 2002, more than 75 percent of the population had access to potable water n terms of the distribution of household.

For the Caribbean, Barbados has the highest rating at 31 followed by St Kitts and Nevis at 51. Haiti is in the 154 th position of the 177 nations that were rated.

The top 10 countries named in the report are Norway in the lead followed by Iceland, Australia, Ireland, Sweden, Canada, Japan, United States, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

The UNDP Report focuses on eight reasons why the world should take a proactive approach to ensure a safe water supply and proper sanitation - eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability and develop global partnership for development.

Guyana is among the Caribbean countries that have been making steady improvements in the areas outlined in the report.

This year the government allocated $14 billion dollars to the education sector and $5 billion to the health sector, with $370 milion earmarked for the enhancement of HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention initiatives.

Most importantly the administration’s efforts at reducing poverty are paying dividends as the level has dropped from 85 percent in 1991 to about 30 percent today.

The report highlights the violation of the basic human right to water which results in 1.1 billion people in developing countries with inadequate access to water, 2.6 billion lacking sanitation and 1.8 million avoidable child deaths.

The report rejects the view that the global water crisis is about absolute shortages of physical supply but rather that the root of the crisis in water can be traced to poverty, inequality and unequal power relationships as well as flawed water management polices that exacerbate scarcity.

Kammar said with less than 10 years to achieve the MDGs it is sad to know that the water sector is attracting less than five percent of development assistance.

She hopes that the report will have a profound bearing on progress towards the achievement of the goals and those nations would reposition water higher on the global development agenda.

The UNDP Human Development Report was first launched 16 years ago. Since then it has exposed the reality of wide spread suffering amidst pockets of plenty and making it clear that unless those in positions of leaderships and influence take action, the world would not be a better place.

  Most popular articles: viewed, printed and e-mailed

  Printable version