The water crisis is real, but we cannot underestimate its complexity and linkages to poverty, food and environmental insecurity, and hopelessness. The problem is not just lack of access to water. It is also the degradation and depletion of water ecosystems ? the lakes, rivers, and wetlands that are the life support systems for citizens and economies of developing countries.

Water resource and related land degradation are being increasingly recognized as major barriers to global sustainable development. In the developing world, degradation of watersheds is accelerating, and inefficiency and waste characterize irrigation and urban water supply systems. The result is not only a lack of vital services for the poor and devastating effects on human health, but also unsafe and unusable river and marine ecosystems devoid of valuable biological diversity that poor communities depend on for livelihoods and survival.

Fragmented institutions, inadequate policies and legal systems, and shortages of funding have contributed to global water scarcity, water use conflicts, and environmental degradation. The lack of proper pricing for water -- and sometimes no pricing at all -- has been a critical factor in water use inefficiency. Free water is wasted water. Water pricing reforms and long-term investments in more efficient and equitable urban water, sewage collection/treatment, and irrigation services are urgently needed.

Other reforms would help ensure a more comprehensive, holistic, and resource-based approach to management of both land and water resources in transboundary basins. A cross-sectoral approach, with full participation of stakeholders at all levels of government, including the basin level, can help balance the different uses of water resources and prevent further depletion and degradation of ecosystems.

An estimated US$100 billion must be invested annually to address the global water crisis. Private sector investments should be encouraged because of the shortage of public funding. But the private sector cannot bear the risk alone. The biodiversity of our precious water resources and the water of transboundary basins represent global public goods that require stewardship from governments and international institutions if private sector financing is to mobilized. In its report to the World Water Forum last year, the World Commission on Water emphasized precisely such an integrated approach.

With its mandate to forge partnerships that simultaneously provide national, regional, and global benefits, the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) is uniquely positioned to play a key role in addressing the problems of water scarcity, water use conflict, pollution, and the mismanagement of land and water resources. The GEF has already committed more than US$465 million in grants for transboundary water projects, leveraging nearly US$600 million in co-financing. One hundred and forty-one countries have received transboundary freshwater and downstream marine ecosystem project assistance. The GEF is ready to increase this commitment to help countries leverage support for necessary policy, legal, and institutional reforms. In addition, GEF resources can be utilized to catalyze public and private sector investments in activities such as public-private partnerships and greater private interventions.

It is imperative that the international community focus on the natural resource depletion that is at the root of poverty, and environmental and food insecurity in poor countries. This must be done by linking conservation with development, and recognizing that halting the degradation of freshwater resources is at the heart of any real solution.

The International Conference on Freshwater offers a tremendous opportunity to re-energize action on water-related reforms. What we do here in Bonn can help propel the global water crisis squarely onto the agendas of the Development Finance Conference and the World Summit on Sustainable Development. But deliberations alone are not enough. They must lead to concrete actions that will help the more than one billion people who are affected by the bitter reality of the global water crisis.

(Mohamed T. El-Ashry is Chairman and CEO of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and served as a member of the World Commission on Water.)