UNEP A

Committee: United Nations Environmental program (UNEP)
Topic A: Measures to protect and promote clean safe drinking water

Director: Claudia de la Peña Ochoa

Moderator: Diana Valeria Ortiz Arizmendi

United Nations Environmental Program Mission:

To provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations. Coordinates United Nations environmental activities, assisting developing countries in implementing environmentally sound policies and encourages sustainable development through sound environmental practices.

After more than 30 years, water resources management continues as a strong pillar of UNEP’s work. From the beginning the program has worked to encourage the sustainable safe drinking water and practice of water resources management.

The water challenge:

It is essential for the life process and vital for all living things, this is the freshwater, which can be obtained from anywhere but not every human being has access to it. One of the mayor developmental challenges in the world today involves providing water to people who don’t currently have it. Today’s water crisis is widespread: over a billion people lack the access to safe water and half of the world population lack affordable sanitation. As a result poor people suffer diarrheal diseases. Also poor and malnourished people in rural areas do not have access to water to grow their food and sustain their live hoods.
There are many sings that water is running out, or at least getting al lot less plentiful in many places. Even though there exist enough water in the world for domestic purposes, industry and even to produce food, not every person can enjoy having it. This is because water resources are distributed very unevenly and also some countries don’t have capital to make them available for them. Providing access to poor people for domestic and productive purposes is the challenge addressed in this paper.
Causes of the “water crisis”

Some of the main problems of why freshwater is lacking all over the world are:

-The population is growing rapidly, putting more pressure on our water supply (demand is increasing).

-The amount of water is effectively reduced by pollution and contamination, meaning that the water supply is decreasing.

-Randomly distributed water resources

-Lack income to provide resources to gain water.

A 2006 United Nations report focuses on issues of governance as the core of the water crisis, saying "There is enough water for everyone" and "Water insufficiency is often due to mismanagement, corruption, lack of appropriate institutions, bureaucratic inertia and a shortage of investment in both human capacity and physical infrastructure” Official data also shows a clear correlation between access to safe water and GDP per capita.

It has also been stated, mainly by economists, that the water situation has occurred because of a lack of property rights, government regulations and subsidies in the water sector, causing prices to be too low and consumption too high.

Uses of fresh water today:

During the 20^th century the world population tripled, making water used for human proposes multiply by six. The human uses of water are the following:

Commercial: for motels, hotels, restaurants, office buildings, other commercial facilities, and civilian and military institutions.

Domestic: includes the entire household, such as drinking, cooking, bathing, cleaning, and watering.

Industrial: processing, cleaning, transportation, dilution, cooling, among others. And for the production of electricity and mining.

Irrigation: including all the agricultural processes. Also water to irrigate public parks.

Livestock: water for stock animals and pets, for fish, in farms, and for the production of red meat, eggs, and wool.

Access to clean water:

Equitable and sustainable management of water resources is a major global challenge. An unacceptable large portion of the world population, one person in five, does not have any access to safe and affordable water for drinking, personal hygiene, and domestic use. And half of the world does not have access to sanitation.

Earth`s surface consists of 70% water. It can be found almost anywhere if the proper methods are used to get it.
Sources where drinking water may be obtained include:

Ground sources such as groundwater, hypothermic zones and aquifers. Precipitation which includes rain, hail, snow, fog, etc. Surface water such as rivers, streams, glaciers Biological sources such as plants. The sea through desalination

Water policy and strategy:

To facilitate a coordinated, effective, and quick implementation of freshwater functions is the primarily objective of the UNEP Water Policy and Strategy. But the overall goal is to contribute for environmental sustainability in the administration of all water resources, using incorporated ecosystems advances, as a contribution to the internationally agreed aim and goals related to water and socio-economic development. Health problems

Cause

Water-borne diseases

Bacterial infections

Typhoid
Cholera
Paratyphoid fever
Bacillary dysentery

Viral infections

Infectious Hepatitis (jaundice)
Poliomyelitis

Protozoa infections

Amoebic dysentery

Each year at least 3 to 4 million people die of waterborne diseases, including more than 2 million children who die of diarrhea, according to the World Health Organization.

In order to prevent the spread of water-borne infectious diseases, people should take adequate precautions. The city water supply should be properly checked and necessary steps taken to disinfect it. Water pipes should be regularly checked for leaks and cracks. At home, the water should be boiled, filtered, or other methods and necessary steps taken to ensure that it is free from infection.

Towards a way to improve the situation:

"There is a water crisis today. But the crisis is not about having too little water to satisfy our needs. It is a crisis of managing water so badly that billions of people - and the environment - suffer badly." World Water Vision Report.

With the current state of affairs, correcting measures still can be taken to avoid the crisis to be worsening. There is an increasing awareness that our freshwater resources are limited and need to be protected both in terms of quantity and quality. This water challenge affects not only the water community, but also decision-makers and every human being. "Water is everybody's business" was one the key messages of the 2^nd World Water Forum.

One of the Millennium Development Goals is to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and sanitation. In order to accomplish that several measures should be taken:

· guarantee the right to water;

· decentralize the responsibility for water;

· develop know-how at the local level;

· increase and improve financing;

· Evaluate and monitor water resources.

UNEP is actively dealing with the water issues together with UN agencies, other organizations and donors. We facilitate and catalyze water resource assessment in diverse developing countries, execute projects that help countries in developing integrated water resource management plans, create awareness of innovative alternative technologies and assist to develop, implement and enforce water resource management policies, laws and regulations.

Facts

· 3.575 million People die each year from water-related disease.

· 43% of water-related deaths are due to diarrhea.

· 84% of water-related deaths are in children ages 0 - 14.

· 98% of water-related deaths occur in the developing world.

· 884 million people, lack access to safe water supplies, approximately one in eight people.

· The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns.

· At any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from a water-related disease.

· Less than 1% of the world’s fresh water (or about 0.007% of all water on earth) is readily accessible for direct human use.

· An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than the typical person living in a developing country slum uses in a whole day.

· About a third of people without access to an improved water source live on less than $1 a day. More than two thirds of people without an improved water source live on less than $2 a day.

· Poor people living in the slums often pay 5-10 times more per liter of water than wealthy people living in the same city.

· Without food a person can live for weeks, but without water you can expect to live only a few days.

· The daily requirement for sanitation, bathing, and cooking needs, as well as for assuring survival, is about 13.2 gallons per person.

Things don’t change; we are the ones who change.
Water will always be there for us; we are the ones who need to take action for a change.

Questions to know:

-What percentaje of your countrys population has acces to water?

-Which is your socioeconomic development level in water admission?

-Which is the main cause of the lack in water on your country?

-What problems is your delegation facing due to water lacking?

-Is your country in any agency or programme to improve the water conditions?

-What measures your country is taking to protect clean water?

-Is your government guranteeing the right to water to the citizens?
how?

Bibliography:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_water#Access

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/freshwater_supply/freshwater.html

http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Tw-Z/Uses-of-Water.html

http://edugreen.teri.res.in/explore/water/health.htm

http://www.worldwatercouncil.org/index.php?id=25

http://water.org/facts

http://www.unep.org/Themes/Freshwater/About/index.asp#