It all made sense, and yet somehow that latter component was If I can speak for poor rural communities from all over the world facing an acute and urgent drinking water crisis this Conference was a "successful" failure because it did not address four major issues that the poor have to deal with every day.The issues were raised through the Multi Stakeholder Dialogue at the Plenary Session and at the Working Groups but at the end of the day the Ministers did not seem to think they were important.It is another sign of the times how elected representatives have lost touch with the real problems of their own constituents all over the world.

It is tragic that the issues directly affecting the poor's access to safe drinking water were casually discussed in passing.If donors,policy planners,administrators and politcians are serious about wanting to solve the problem through the various global meetings being arranged leading to Johannesburg in September 2002 they cannot avoid the following issues:-

1. The Ethical issue

At the expense of villages not having enough water to drink groundwater is being over-exploited through the sinking of deep tube wells and traditional sources (open wells)are drying up. This precious water is being transported through the laying of pipelines (suits private companies) to provide water to urban areas to maintain a prohibitely expensive life style where water is wasted maintaining gardens, washing machines and flushed toilets.Several stakeholders have drafted Codes of Ethics mentioning this discrimination and injustice between rural and urban and the rich and the poor but there is no mention of enforcement.

2. The Ownership Issue

Who owns the water--the community or the State? This has not been resolved to the satisfaction of the poor.Where the State claims to own the water the rural communities have suffered considerably because the assets have not been maintained.Millions of hand pumps that could have been repaired by communities are lying idle because the State has proved to be so inefficient.There are graveyards of piped water supply schemes owned by the State that could have easily been repaired by the community of users(especially the women) at much lower cost but because governments have such a poor opinion of the capacity of communities to look after their own water supply the problem continues to be serious.

3. The Technology Issue

Today the decision of the choice of technology to be adopted rests with the State without any consultation with the community.It is the right of the community of users to be consulted prior to any plans being approved deciding on the choice of technology. Whether it should be hand pumps, piped waterr supply or rainwater harvesting structures this decision should be collective,transparent and accountable. Because this is not the case corruption is rampant in the drinking water industry but no one wanted to discuss this openly at the Conference. In the Code of Ethics this is a point that has been accepted but it remains on paper.

4. The Corruption Issue

The Conference was where all the stakeholders were present.It was a time to discuss how effectively petty corruption involving the politician,the engineer and the administrator could have been tackled. It should have found prominence in the final Ministerial Declaration. But a golden opportunity was missed to openly discuss case studies involving donors and governments and how the corruption issue had been addressed so that other could learn.

5. The Rainwater Harvesting Issue

The Final Recommendations of the Conference puts rainwater harvesting as an "Innovative Technology".This speaks volumes on the outdated conservative mindset of the government planners and engineers.It may be innovative for them but this technology is thousands of years old as far as the communities are concerned.If the target is to reach 1.2 billion people without access to safe drinking water through low cost community controlled rainwater harvesting techniques it should be possible to reach drinking water to several millions.But this option has not even been considered by the global water mafia who still believe the answer lies in taking water out of the ground instead of catching rain water where it falls.

It is hoped that wiser sense will prevail in Johannesburg and these issues will somehow feature as a part of mainsteam discussion.

(Bunker Roy runs Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan, in India.)