Representing UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman, Ms. Tobin was briefing correspondents on the aims of a roundtable discussion that was to be held on the same evening at UNICEF House under the theme: “Achieving the Millennium Development Goals for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in Africa with a Gender Perspective.” The roundtable was organized by the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) and UNICEF to seek support for the “Women Leaders for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for all” (WASH) initiative launched last year by the WSSCC. Minister Hilde Frajford Johnson, Norway’s Minister for International Development was present at the briefing, while Minister Maria Mutagamba, Ugandan Minister of State for Water, was delayed and could not attend.

Ms. Tobin said that the group’s effort to focus attention on those issues was hardly a side event. “WASH is central to discussions taking place at the World Summit because we are talking about practical ways to save lives,” she stressed. Millions of lives were lost annually owing to lack of sanitation. Child survival in Africa, more than anywhere else, depended on the availability of clean water. Every day, thousands of women and children in Africa were dying for lack of safe water and basic sanitation. The lack of these basic services added up to a development catastrophe for women. “If we can’t provide something as fundamental as a safe water source and a latrine, what hope can we have or providing more complex needs such as vaccines, malaria bed-nets and anti-HIV/AIDS measures?” she asked.

Minister Johnson said that clean water and basic sanitation, issues that were particularly critical for women, had been ignored because they were not sexy,” but providing clean water and basic sanitation was fundamental to achieving many of the MDGs. “We’re trying to mobilize other women leaders because we want this goal to come higher up on the agendas and to mobilize decision-makers to do more in this area,” she said. Some 1.1 billion people worldwide lacked safe water and twice that number were without basic sanitation. In rural Africa, some 19 per cent of women spent more than an hour every day in search of potable water. In addition, the absence of sanitation in schools kept girls from attending. The aim of the WASH initiative was not to obtain new funds or create new organisations, but to mobilize action on this issue. “We are foremost advocates. We will try to challenge decision-makers to deliver more funds for existing structures,” said Minister Johnson.

In response to a correspondent’s question, Ms. Tobin said that Ministers Mutagamba and Johnson were the most active supporters of the WASH goals. Other African Ministers as well as the Presidents of Madagascar and Senegal had also shown support for the initiative.

Ms. Johnson added that sector initiatives suffered from a lack of leadership, especially on the issue of sanitation. Some donors had taken the need for clean water seriously but no one had taken the lead with respect to sanitation, although France and the Netherlands had been leaders in water initiatives, she said.

Asked why water and sanitation were particularly women’s issues, Minister Johnson said that in addition to the dangers of having to defecate in the open, girls who were menstruating suffered the additional embarrassment of lacking privacy. The lack of proper sanitation for women in the workplace increased the impediments to women’s employment. “Because of their physical makeup, the lack of proper sanitation presented more of a health risk to women. In Darfur, for example, women were frequently raped when they went to get water or look for a toilet,” she said.

In general, Ms. Tobin said that sanitation and water were largely women’s issues because women were customarily most concerned with the health and hygiene of their children and in preparing food. Asked what the group hoped to get from world leaders this week, Ms. Tobin said it sought to halve the number of people without access to safe water and basic sanitation and to get world leaders to focus on the importance of these basic needs.

Ms. Johnson added that the group hoped to impress upon world leaders the importance of safe water and basic sanitation so that they would, in turn, impress it upon their colleagues as well. But the achievement of the group’s goals would not come until the world leaders went home, she said.

Noting that sub-Saharan Africa was the only region that would miss targets on both water and sanitation, the Norwegian Minister said that was why efforts must be focused on Africa. Only 58 per cent of Africans lived within a half-hour of reaching water and only 36 per cent had toilets. The Presidents of Madagascar and Senegal were scheduled to attend the roundtable, showing that male leaders in Africa cared about those issues, she added.

Asked what donor funds for water and sanitation were currently used for, Ms. Johnson said that the World Bank had put a lot of money into large- and small-scale water projects, but mostly of a high-technology nature rather than small community-based projects. Norway had funded local projects involving the provision of toilets and the digging of wells using technologies that could be maintained by local people. Experience showed that large-scale, high-tech projects did not work, she said. Using women’s groups to address those problems had been successful and UNICEF was involved in a number of such projects.

Ms Tobin agreed that small-scale, community-based projects had proven to be more successful than larger ones, and noted that about 30 per cent of water projects in Africa and about 20 per cent in Asia were not operating.

Asked what particular technology and projects had worked, Ms Tobin said that UNICEF had projects in 90 countries, including rainwater harvesting systems in India and Bangladesh, gravity-flow water supply systems and small mechanized systems involving the training of local mechanics. The projects also involved the creation of local networks to provide spare parts to keep the systems operating, she said. Examples of effective sanitation projects included latrines with hygienic slabs that could be cleaned easily.

In response to a question whether Malawi was an example of failed projects in that area, Ms. Tobin said that there had been a need to replace many pipes there, but non-governmental organisations had succeeded in working with local governments to rebuild gravity-fed supply systems. Asked why sanitation had been neglected, Ms. Johnson replied that it was difficult to imagine walking through the streets carrying banners that said: “We Want Toilets.” Minister Johnson added that sanitation did not make a good campaign slogan, although according to Ms. Eirah Gorre-Dale, WSSCC Spokesperson, who moderated the press briefing, one of the more popular WASH campaign slogans says: “Water is life, sanitation is dignity.” She then invited all of the journalists to attend the roundtable session at UNICEF House, and to continue the dialogue with the speakers who included Ministers and a couple of Presidents.