One important step is to take much more seriously, action towards the Millennium goals of halving poverty by 2015. Another, is to take actions to diminish the extremes of injustice ñ the widening gaps in income and power between the majority in the poorest and least developed countries and the majority who live in most of the industrial countries. A third, is to focus on people and the human situations, for instance to ensure that the next generation of young women and men, feel that opportunities are open for their own advancement and participation, if they get education and show initiatives. This is the agenda of human development.

Diminishing the threats of terrorism can provide a new energy to old debates and programmes in many parts of the UN. One example is water, sanitation and hygiene - basic human rights to which everyone is entitled - whether in Afghanistan, Pakistan or in neighbouring countries such as Iran and the Central Asian Republics, or indeed in many African and Asian countries. In two weeks time, the International Conference on Freshwater (3-7 December) will be held in Bonn, Germany where hundreds of government ministers and other delegates will be present. The debate in Bonn needs to build on the new urgency for action, to see how water, sanitation and hygiene can contribute to the progress needed to provide human development and security in place of frustration and threats to peace. The Bonn agenda needs to grasp the risks and challenges that we all face if our only response to terrorism is force to respond after it has attacked, rather than positive action in advance to diminish its causes.

According to the latest report by the Geneva-based Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), WHO and UNICEF in 2000, there are over 1.3 billion people in the world today without safe water and some 2.4 billion ñ roughly one in five of the Third Worldís population without safe water and nearly half without basic sanitation. This dismal picture is part of the inequality in basic human needs and a part in which governments, experts, international agencies, the private sector, NGOs and communities themselves can do something about.

Whatever its other causes, and there are many, terrorism thrives in situations of injustice. Extreme poverty and extremes of inequality encourage extreme responses. This should bring home the costs of failures of the sustainable development process. To me, poverty and inequality provide the fertile ground in which global terrorism can grow and flourish.

Can poverty reduction be accelerated, especially when many parts of the world are in or entering recession? Much can and must be done at local level, by enabling communities themselves to be part of the solution. By mobilizing the energy and creativity of communities to plan and direct their own sector policies, people-based approaches are usually efficient and sustainable. This does not mean leaving it all to local communities, let alone providing minimal financial support. Rather it means, finding new ways for partnerships within countries by building on and supporting local initiatives. Through its Vision 21 initiative, began by the WSSCC and its partners in 1999, people-centered approaches are being encouraged for drinking water, sanitation and hygiene improvements ñ and have been shown to work. Vision 21 offers practical ways to end the burgeoning crisis and brings hope to policy-makers and to the billions of poor people seeking to reach the goal of safe water, sanitation and hygiene for all by the year 2025.

If the tragedy of September 11th leads to a renewed impetus for human-focused actions along these lines and helps nations to reduce poverty and narrow the most extreme and still growing inequalities, then some good may result from it.