To observe this Day is to encourage greater concern by governments, by international agencies, by the organizations of civil society, in all matters related to our planet's water. We repeatedly emphasized how much clean water must be of urgent concern to us all. No sustainable development can even be imagined without universal access to healthy water, and of course the issue of water must permeate our entire regard for the ecosystem. It falls to the World Health Organization to lead celebrations. It is fitting indeed that human health should furnish the theme for World Water Day 2001.
Health is the prerequisite for any development at all.
To provide safe, clean water for drinking and sanitation is simply the fundamental condition for bettering the human lot. We are especially thinking here of the world's regions most afflicted by poverty. We cannot stand idly back when we know that 1.2 billion people, throughout the planet's developing countries, still enjoy no adequate access to safe sources of fresh water. Twice as many are yet denied access to proper sanitation services. Soiled water sickens and kills.