Appendix: List of Possible Joint Actions by Asian key organizations and UNSGAB

• ADB, in real consultation with UNESCAP, UN Resident Coordinators, and relevant UN sectoral organizations operating in Asia agrees to collaborate in order to promote a new and focused regional dialogue on how to secure real commitments to review, develop and implement effective action to scale up sanitation programmes.
  
  • The process has begun with the Beijing Ministerial Meeting on Sanitation ? this meeting should be taken very seriously by all relevant players.
  • At the national level, Governments must agree to the strengthening sanitation policies via the assignment of clear responsibilities for getting this done at the national and international levels.
  • In collaboration with existing initiatives and campaigns such as WASH and Ecosan, ADB and regional UN organizations should organize regional or sub-regional workshops with involvement of stakeholders including health professionals and scientists to inform relevant players of the technological, economic and social organization options. Community mobilization, the recognition of women's key role and stake, along with an appropriate mix of "software" and "hardware" interventions are essential. There should be training on how to encourage demand driven, sustainable & traditional solutions, and informed choices by recognizing the importance of working from the bottom up with practitioners and communities.
  • After the Sanitation Summit, UNESCAP, in collaboration with other key institutions in Asia, should organize a regional high-level meeting in the "International Year of Sanitation" to discuss the policy and organizational changes necessary to promote sanitation at the personal and household levels, and to enhance the sustainability and effectiveness of available sanitation solutions, as well as the health impacts, social and cultural acceptance, technological and institutional appropriateness, and the protection of the environment and natural resources.
• UNSGAB will support these regional organizations to organize workshops and meetings, appealing to regional and international organizations to take action to help achieve the MDG sanitation target in collaboration with existing initiatives and campaigns such as WSP. WASH and Ecosan.

• Although public funding is essential, and particularly needed to ensure that subsidy is always available for the poorest, there is not enough public funding available to meet the demand for improved and extended access to water, and the new demands for waste water treatment. It is essential that Asian Water Operators gain the skills, and the client-paid revenue base to enable them to improve and expand their operations. The HAP strongly suggests that this should be done on a sub regional basis with directed, well designed programmes to address capacity needs of water operators which will enable them to better fulfill their mandates and ultimately to raise a substantial part of the revenue they need to do so.
  
  • ADB, working in collaboration with others, is requested to take steps to organize a sustained program of water operator capacity building over a 5 year period to cover the utilities of Asia.
    • Building on the lessons learned from WOPS experience, the ADB should prepare a review of lessons learned in the sector to help construct a regional conceptual framework for decision making in water supply and sanitation
  • UNSGAB must help raise the grant funds necessary underwrite this process
  • Asian Governments should signal their willingness to contribute to this endeavor which will create more capacity, more revenue and more water and sanitation access.

• ADB and other key organizations in Asia should build on the work they have done to bring Asian utilities together
• ADB should endorse and assist in the development of the Water Operators Partnerships (WOPs) in close cooperation with Global WOPs Initiative of Habitat. UNSGAB offers this bottom-up approach as a foundation stone for improving the sector, based on water operators;

• Disaster preparedness and ability to withstand changes caused by climate variability and disaster. UNSGAB will support. Asian key organizations will collaborate to support strengthening Asian countries' capability and readiness to manage water disasters and water and sanitation provision during and after disasters.

• UNESCAP
  • working with Regional Coordinators and based on the now available guidelines for reporting on water resource management will convene workshops to enable exchange of on IWRM and Water Efficiency Plans and to assist in preparing the plans, and
  • will convene a workshop with relevant UN organizations and donors such as JICA to assess how to better support transboundary organizations and promote cooperation between them;
• UNSGAB will support to organize such workshops to promote governments' formulation and implementation of IWRM and Water Efficiency Plans;

• Asia key organizations and UNSGAB will endorse the 1st Asia-Pacific Water Summit to be held in Japan, in December this year, and promote top-level policy and decision-makers in the region to participate.