2 Dec 2007

Speech byProf Tommy Koh for theOpening Ceremony of the 1st APWSYour Imperial Highness, the Crown Prince of Japan,Your Royal Highness, the Crown Prince of Orange of the Netherlands,
Chairman, UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Water andSanitation

Your Excellency, Prime Minister Fukuda,Your Excellency, former Prime Minister Mori,Your Excellencies, the Heads of State and Government,

Ministers, Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Welcome by Governing Council

On behalf of the Governing Council of the Asia Pacific WaterForum, it gives me great pleasure to extend a warm welcome to all ofyou, especially to the many friends from outside Japan. It is an honour
for me and for my two Vice-Chairs, Ambassador Erna Witoelar ofIndonesia and Mr Ravi Narayanan of India, to welcome you all to thefirst Asia Pacific Water Summit.

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This historic event would not have been possible without thetireless work of a number of people from across our vast and diverse
region.

Such a level of intra-regional cooperation is a remarkableachievement of the Asia Pacific Water Forum and of its ever-growing
network of members and friends.

What is the Asia Pacific Water Forum?

But what exactly is the Asia Pacific Water Forum or APWF as it
has come to be called?

Itis

an

open,inclusive,non-partisan,non-political,

multi-stakeholder network. Every government, local and municipal
authorities, academic and civil society organization, which has aninterest in water, is welcome to join the Asia Pacific Water Forum.

Thank the JWF and the Secretariat

We want to thank former Prime Minister Mori for allowing theJapan Water Forum to serve as the Secretariat of the Asia Pacific WaterForum. I want to thank three particularly outstanding members of theSecretariat:

Mr Hideaki Oda, Ms Noriko Yamaguchi and Ms TaekoYokota. Please join me in giving them a warm round of applause.

Homage to PM Hashimoto22 Dec 2007

Some of you will recall the Joint Declaration issued by the Water
Ministers of the Asia-Pacific Region, on 21 March, 2006, during theFourth World Water Forum held in Mexico City. The Joint Declaration
called for the creation of the Asia Pacific Water Forum and provided inits mandate, to work “in complete solidarity to identify and adoptsolutions to water issues in the region.” The fact that this Summit isbeing held less than two years after the adoption of that declaration is atestimony to the hard work and effort put in by all the APWF members.
The founding of the APWF was an initiative of the late Prime Minister
Hashimoto and I would like to dedicate this Summit to his memory.

Meeting the MDG Target 10

The Asia Pacific Water Forum aims to contribute to sustainable
water management and the achievement of the UN’s Millennium
Development Goals and Targets in the Asia Pacific. Target No. 10 is toreduce by half the number of people in the world without access to safe
drinking water and modern sanitation by 2015. ASEAN, at its recent
Summit in Singapore, committed itself to “endeavour to reduce by half ofthe number of people without sustainable access to safe drinking waterby 2010”. In the Asia Pacific, in spite of our growing prosperity, 700
million people do not have access to safe drinking water and 1.9 billion
people do not have access to modern sanitation.

The situation isunacceptable. We have the means to make safe water and modern
sanitation a basic human right of all the peoples in this region. Ourcollective ambition is to ensure that water policy, reform, investment andperformance are high on the agendas of our region’s leaders.
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APWF’s Two Objectives

The APWF’s objectives are: (i) to provide countries andorganisations in the Asia-Pacific region with a common platform andvoice to articulate the region’s strategies and promote its achievements
in solving water problems and (ii) to showcase leadership in decisionmaking, excellence in practice and innovation, and results that have hada substantial impact at the grassroots level.

Three Priority Themes

In order to meet its objectives, APWF has focused its efforts on
three Priority Themes:Water Financing and Capacity Development;

Water-related Disaster Management; and

Water for Development and Ecosystems.

Progress towards each priority theme will be presented here at theSummit. I would like to set the stage by highlighting the key messages
and recommendations from each of the Priority Themes. My speech isbased upon the excellent Policy Brief which has been prepared by thewhole APWF family, under the supervision of my two Vice-Chairs. I
have also drawn inspiration from a new publication by ADB, entitled“Asian Water Development Outlook”.

I want to thank Mr Kuroda,

President of the Asian Development Bank for this important contribution
to the Summit.
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Water Financing and Capacity Development

Under the First Priority Theme, Water Financing and Capacity
Development, APWF members have arrived at the conclusion “thatwater problems of developing countries are manageable.” What thismeans is that the knowledge base required to evolve proper solutions inthe Asia Pacific region is currently available. However, in order toformulate and implement solutions in a timely, cost-effective, pragmaticand optimum manner will require significant additional investment,strong political will, and appropriate capacity development at all levels.
The principal challenges are not technological – the hardware of watersector development – but rather the soft issues: sound policies, legal
and regulatory reform; planning and technology choices; financing
mechanisms; institutional reform and capacity development.

Water and sanitation must be given a higher priority on thenational, regional and international agendas – and this requires a firmand continuing commitment from all our decision-makers and politicalleaders.

A regional investment of just US$8 billion a year would ensure that
the Asia-Pacific will meet the MDG Target on water and sanitation. This,in turn, would go a long way towards meeting the combined andcomplementary objectives of development and poverty reduction,
economic growth and social equity in the region.

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Water Related Disaster Management

The second Priority Theme, Water-Related Disaster Management,
has been seeking to create a new momentum for achieving a positivechange in the way water-related disasters are managed in the AsiaPacific region. As recently highlighted by the IPCC, the increasingly
extreme climatic events, such as, floods, droughts and coastal flooding,
induced by global warming is likely to further aggravate the impact ofdisasters in the region. Heavy rainfalls, which are very likely to increasein frequency, will augment the risk of floods. In the course of the next
century, the volume of water stored in glaciers and snowcaps, which aremelting, are projected to decline, reducing the availability of water thatwill affect more than one-sixth of the world’s population. And, at theother end of the geographic spectrum, the vulnerability of small islandstates to water shortages, tropical cyclones and sea-level rise continues
to increase dramatically.

These climatic projections illustrate the importance of recognizing“adaptation” to increasing risks from climate variability and change as
one of the “highest” priority issues. It is, therefore, important to integratewater-related disaster risk reduction into national development plans andto link disaster reduction to national Integrated Water Resources
Management plans. Establishing local and national targets for waterrelated disaster reduction, increasing capacity for monitoring and forearly warning systems, and the development of preparedness indices
are among the key recommendations that will be presented during thisSummit.
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Water for Development and Ecosystems

The third and final Priority Theme focuses on Water forDevelopment and Ecosystems. The challenge here is to secure water
for long-term, multi-sectoral needs, generating both development andenvironmental dividends.

This includes adopting practical tools toimprove the economic, social and environmental outcomes of watermanagement.

Water management must recognize that ecosystems

themselves require certain levels of water flows in order to remain
productive and provide for the needs of all stakeholders in society.

This Priority Theme recommends: (i) the protection and restorationof urban environments, (ii) the modernization and management ofirrigation systems and (iii) the adoption of environmental flows in water
development planning and policies.

Guiding Principles

The APWF has also developed a series of Guiding Principles toachieve our objectives and these include:Empowering the local authorities to which delivery of basic
water services has been delegated, and strengthening theircapacity to fulfill their role;Promoting partnership approaches between local authorities,
Non-Governmental

Organisations

andcommunity-basedgroups, as well as public and private sector service providers;and7

2 Dec 2007

Providing resources for capacity development to ensure thatthe knowledge, skills and behavior changes are in place at thelevels where these matter most.

Five Key Results Areas

In order to achieve tangible and concrete progress towards eachof the priority themes, and towards water and development in general,
the APWF also developed five Key Result Areas (KRAs): (i) Developing
knowledge and lessons; (ii) Increasing local capacity; (iii) Increasing
public outreach; (iv) Monitoring investments and results; and (v)Supporting the work of the Forum and Summit, each of which
encompasses a specific set of related activities.

Each of these Key Result Areas has generated a set of Concrete
Initiatives. Some of these initiatives are well under way, while others arein the planning stages. However, every single one of these initiatives
providesanotherpiece

tothepuzzle

ofwater

security

anddevelopmental sustainability. These include the creation of platforms forknowledge coordination, sharing and management as well as monitoringat the regional and country levels.

Impact on People at Grass Roots

All of these messages, recommendations and initiatives are goodand commendable. However, our challenge is to implement them. With
greater support from leaders and key decision-makers, we can achieve82 Dec 2007

progress on the ground that will make a real difference to the lives ofhundreds of millions of people in our region, especially our poor people.

Relationships with Other Major Events

The outcomes of the 1st APWS will feed directly into other highprofile international events such as the thirteenth United Nations Climate
Change Conference which begins in Bali today, the 2008 G8 Summit inJapan and the 5th World Water Forum. With 2008 earmarked as theInternational Year of Sanitation, this Summit will help to focus theregion’s attention on the equally challenging problem of sanitation.

Conclusion

On behalf of the Asia Pacific Water Forum, its lead organizations,and of its many members from throughout the region, I thank you forparticipating in the 1st Asia Pacific Water Summit and committing toimplement its deliverables. Let us agree to embrace our shared visionof raising water and sanitation to the top of our local, national and global
agendas. With political will and the support of all the stakeholders, wecan make the dream of providing all the peoples of our region,sustainable access to affordable safe drinking water and modern
sanitation a reality.

Thank you.
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