Date: 02/03/2009

Source: Department of Water Affairs and Forestry

Title: SA: Hendriks: Address at the launch of the framework on water for growth and development by the Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry

Members and officials of our public entities
Councillors and officials of municipalities
Partners from the private sector
Programme Director
Honoured guests
Ladies and gentlemen

Introduction

It is an honour to address you today on this important occasion as we mark the start of National Water Week and the launch of the framework on water for growth and development.

The National Water Week is celebrated annually during the month of March and is composed of a series of events that promote water conservation whilst celebrating our successes with regards to securing the human rights of all citizens to access clean water. The key goal of the National Water Week is to raise the profile of water as a key resource for socio-economic development hence the need to educate people on the importance of protecting and conserving this limited resource.

It is important to always remind all South Africans, that our country is classified amongst the driest countries by world standard hence the importance of ensuring that the little water that we have is protected from pollution and conserved to achieve efficient use. This requires careful management of this valuable resource so that we are able to extend basic water services to every citizen whilst meeting the needs of economic growth without threatening the environmental integrity of our water resources. Government is constantly balancing the escalating and competing demands on the country's limited water resources, ever mindful of the fact that water for social development, economic growth and environmental sustainability are equally important for the success and prosperity of this country.

I would also like to take this opportunity to launch the framework on water for growth and development. This is an important framework that maps our course of action in ensuring that our country secures enough water to support its growth trajectory both social and economic. Of course we need to ensure that whatever we implement adheres to sustainable environmental practices.

Achievements

It is important for us to take a moment to reflect on the road we have travelled and appreciate what we have achieved over the past fifteen years. When the first democratic government took over in 1994, it was confronted with massive infrastructure backlogs, fragmented institutional arrangements, outdated policies and repressive legislation. It took a lot of time and financial investment to correct these anomalies, and there are still remnants of our divided past that still haunt us today and will still take us some time to undo.

We take pride in our successes to date, which include the development of outstanding policy and legislation. Inevitably, the initial years of our programmes focused on servicing un-served areas of our country and addressing the needs of the poor, especially those residing in the former homelands, which led to massive infrastructure programmes to address the backlogs that resulted from decades of separate development and neglect.

The fact that our country still faces backlogs in some localities often distracts us from taking pride in our successes since 1994. We are recognised internationally for achieving what seemed impossible in terms of reducing historic backlogs today; millions of our people have access to clean water and safe sanitation facilities. South Africa's policies and legislation are also acclaimed world wide for being progressive, pro-poor and adhering to universal human rights. To achieve this, we had to go through very difficult changes in an attempt find the suitable policies and institutional mechanisms while ensuring a fair balance between our responsibility to provide services and the need to subject ourselves to constant review and repositioning.

Over the past ten years, local government has been gradually introduced as the centre of community level service delivery, including water services, and therefore our focus shifted to local government support to ensure that municipalities were able to assume this responsibility effectively.

Responding to Government's Programme of Action

In his State of the Nation Address, the President reminded us of government's responsibility to support economic development in the country by removing critical bottlenecks such as the lack of adequate infrastructure, the unavailability of appropriate skills and lack of regulation. These are all relevant to the water sector, and water remains as a key enabler for socio-economic growth, especially in a country such as ours.

The President also reminded us that access to basic services and meeting the millennium development goals, remains at the top of the agenda of government's programme of action. This means that we need to accelerate efforts to support local government's municipal infrastructure development programme. This we must do without neglecting our responsibilities in other areas such as asset management, water quality and water conservation and demand management. Again, whilst we are constitutionally obliged to support local government, we must equally ensure that municipalities discharge their functions within our regulatory framework.

Whilst South Africa's economy has been and is growing in new directions, and the country faces new challenges as its democracy matures, the development agenda is broadening to address new priorities. I strongly believe that all of us agree that securing our water needs is an important measure towards addressing these priorities. I equally believe that all of us irrespective of political affiliation agree that poverty eradication, access to health services and job creation are amongst the key development priorities of our nation.

For our programmes to be relevant, they need to address these priorities within the ambit of government's programme of action, and with a direct response to guiding economic and development strategies such as Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsGISA) and the Anti-Poverty Strategy. Most importantly, we need to ensure that decisions on key government programmes are informed by the status of water availability, balanced allocation and the need for improved water use efficiency.

New challenges

Our raw and drinking water quality is an area of concern for my department, and media reports have elevated this to a so-called "water crisis". We are experiencing unprecedented water pollution due to increased industrial activity and unplanned settlements, infrastructure failures due to the ageing of such infrastructure, and water shortages in certain regions. The poor quality of water influence costs in foregone exports of crops, water borne disease, death and lost productivity (especially in a context of HIV and AIDS), loss of aquatic biodiversity, impacts on water based tourism and recreation, and increasing water treatment costs for municipalities and industry. The two most significant sources of raw water pollution are poorly managed waste water treatment works (WWTW) and acid mine drainage (current and abandoned mines).

Ladies and gentlemen, growth in certain sectors of the economy such as mining, coupled with a growing population has led to increased demand for water finite resource. Poor management and limited regulation have led to the illegal water use, such as illegal abstraction of water and increasing incidents of water pollution in a number of our catchments. We are also aware that climate change is a reality, and as a result provinces are experiencing increased variability in rainfall.

The current state of affairs can have a devastating impact on our society, especially our vulnerable and poor citizens if it is not managed properly. Without sufficient water, health and food security are compromised. Without sufficient water, industrial growth is constrained.

We need to act, and act decisively. If we do not act now, it is projected that our major metropolitan centres will not be able to cope with increasing industrial and household water needs in the next ten years, and Gauteng may run out of water even earlier by 2013.

This state of affairs reminds us of an English proverb that says "We never know the worth of water 'til the well is dry'.

Our biggest challenge is maintaining a fair balance when allocating our limited water resources amongst the competing ecological, economic and social demands. When doing so, we need to bear in mind that these competing sectors do not operate in mutually exclusive environments and therefore we need to ensure that our actions produce positive effects throughout the cycle. The cost of doing business has been cited by the private sector as a significant constraint to economic growth. And as a nation, we have to take responsibility for our actions.

Water for Growth and Development: A Framework for Action

Ladies and gentlemen securing adequate and safe drinking water to address the growing demands of the social and economic sectors of our country is a critical challenge facing our government. As Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry I must however assure you that we are equal to the task.

Program director, the department in consultation with the water sector partners has worked tirelessly to come up with a holistic approach to address our daunting challenges so as to avert the so-called water crisis. I am pleased to present the Water for Growth and Development Framework, which reflects our commitment to water security for our people, the economy and the environment for now and into the future. This is a framework for action, developed by the sector and led by government. The key thrust of which is to ensure that sufficient supply of water is secured to support the country's economic growth targets as well as ensuring that every person in South Africa has access to safe drinking water.

This framework is the result of two years' worth of consultations with key players in the water sector and at this moment I need to pause and thank all our partners for the valuable input leading to its development. In January 2009, Cabinet gave us approval to engage in an extensive consultation process with all stakeholders involved in the water sector. The process of developing the framework has forced the government to confront some hard truth about challenges in the sector. It has also provided a platform for government to engage with the sector partners in seeking appropriate long term solutions to respond to these challenges.

The dynamics of water for growth and development and poverty alleviation are very complex, and are dependent on many physical, cultural, political and economic circumstances. There is however a consensus that water resources development and management are an essential foundation on which to build and generate wealth, mitigate risk, and alleviate poverty.

This framework makes a number of recommendations that will allow SA to respond to the challenges identified. These include the following:
* placing water at the heart of all development planning decisions
* exploring but not exploiting all available sources of raw water to supplement the limited resources we currently depend on
* increasing efforts of influencing changes in attitudes and behaviour of all our citizens towards water
* striking a balance between the need to provide water and the need to manage demand
* prioritising access by all citizens to clean water
* building relevant and capable water institutions to ensure that different responsibilities are effectively executed
* strengthening of our regulatory regime

My Director General will elaborate more on these points in her presentation later today.

To achieve this, we will require joint efforts from all sectors in government, industry and civil society to support integrated planning, collaboration, investment and implementation.

Water as a shared responsibility

Ladies and gentlemen

We must make water everybody's business. I strongly believe that we need to strengthen multi stakeholder dialogues on the security and the utilisation of our water to achieve balanced and sustainable socio-economic development. It is important to establish strong cooperation within government, within the broader water sector, and between government, the private and civil sectors. There are a number of areas for which action will be required where such cooperation will be absolutely necessary. These are:
* ensuring safe drinking water and sanitation for all
* ensuring increased water use efficiency especially in agriculture
* increasing protection of water resources or rivers, springs, dams, and groundwater
* responding to the impact of climate change.

Practical actions will include:
* increased research on improved appropriate technology to deal with various challenges water quality, storage, access, recycling
* financing of the various initiatives to improve water availability and quality
* skills development and knowledge management
* institutional development and support

Closing remarks

Programme director, ladies and gentlemen, we fully understand that there is no single solution to remedy the growing water stress and rainfall, unreliability and that other factors such as climate change will make the situation worse. The Water for Growth and Development Framework addresses these key issues. It is a framework that maps a course of action to ensure that water fully claims its central role as a cross sectoral input that supports social development, economic growth and ecological sustainability.

We will continue to engage the various sectors to fine tune our plans and get the necessary commitment on the framework. This framework should be owned by all of us as a shared commitment to act collectively towards securing our water needs.

The department has partnered with other water sector partners to stage events throughout this week. I would like to urge all sector partners to assist government during the National Water Week to communicate strong messages about the need to conserve water.

Thank you.