• 8th Meeting
  May 30-June 1, 2007
  Shanghai, China
  
• 7th Meeting
  December 13-15, 2006
  Tunis, Tunisia
  
• 6th Meeting
  July 10-11, 2006
  Paris, France
  
• 5th Meeting
  March 14-15, 2006
  and 4th World Water Forum
  March 16-22, 2006
  Mexico City, Mexico
  
• 4th Meeting
  February 20-21, 2006
  Berlin, Germany
  
• 3rd Meeting
  November 3-4, 2005
  Rome, Italy
  
• 2nd Meeting
  December 9-10, 2004
  Tokyo, Japan
  
• 1st Meeting
  July 22-23, 2004
  New York, USA
  

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1. Opening

H.R.H Prince Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, UNSGAB Chair, thanked the Government of China for their generous and efficient hosting arrangements and welcomed UNSGAB's members to their 8th session. At a recent meeting in New York, H.R.H. explained that the new Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon expressed his full support for UNSGAB's mandate. He said the Asian Dialogue scheduled for the next day was an important milestone for the Board.

Assistant Secretary-General, Patrizio Civili said that under H.R.H.'s Chairmanship, UNSGAB had made important achievements including progress of the International Year of Sanitation and Water Operator Partnerships. He outlined Chair's energetic actions on behalf of the Board and thanked him for his deep commitment to achieving the MDG targets on water and sanitation.

2. Adoption of the Agenda

With the addition of "communication strategy" under any other business, the agenda was adopted.

3. Overall progress and implementation

Kenzo Hiroki, Head of UNSGAB Secretariat, Interregional Adviser on Water and Sanitation, UNDESA outlined progress of UNSGAB according to the six action areas of the Hashimoto Action Plan (HAP).

4. International Year of Sanitation

The Chair along with Uschi Eid, UNSGAB Vice-Chair reported on the successful outcome of the first preparatory meeting for the International Year of Sanitation (IYS) that took place on May 7 in New York. The draft objectives which resulted from the meeting were shared with UNSGAB and approved with minor revisions. It will be submitted to Secretary-General as formal recommendation by the Board. The Secretariat agreed to widely distribute the Objectives through its network including its website.

Kenza Kaouakib-Robinson of UNDESA presented progress coordination of the International Year of Sanitation. Jack Sim of the World Toilet Organization explained his organizations approach to sanitation and suggested that given the lack of demand drivers, demand for access to sustainable sanitation financial needs to be created at the community level. Board member Margaret Catley-Carlson reported on the progress of the UNSGAB working group on Sanitation focusing on four elements described in the Hashimoto Action Plan (HAP) awareness raising, promoting accelerated actions, developing and applying capacity, and targeting the national level formulate sanitation policies and plans. Members discussed on focus areas of actions by the Board including introduction of appropriate technology, removal of stigma, and gender aspects on actions.

5. AU Water Summit

Mr. Hiroki reported that the plans for the AU Water Summit were in hand and that the AU would have to make a decision as to whether to proceed with this proposal (first tabled at the 7th UNSGAB meeting in Tunis) at their next meeting. If the decision was positive, UNSGAB would help the AU to take preparatory action towards the Summit. Suggestions on process, coordination with key organizations such as AMCOW and approaches towards the AU Summit were made by Members. Secretariat will take them into consideration to take follow-up actions.

6. Meeting of Working Groups

Meetings of the working groups for the 6 chapters in the HAP, namely, Water Operator Partnerships (WOPs), financing, monitoring, integrated water resources management, and water and disaster, were held. The WGs discussed to present WG work plans for 2007/2008 based on submitted work plan sheets.

7. G-8 water discussion in Japan in 2008

The members discussed strategy to raise profile of water and sanitation in G-8 Summit in Japan in 2008. They agreed that water and sanitation will be proposed as independent theme to be discussed in G-8 rather than as sub-items of other issues such as climate change. It was agreed to prepare a follow-up report of Evian Water Action Plan in light of the HAP that would be submitted as our Board's advice to the SG and forwarded to the G-8. Follow up actions including sending letters to G-8 Heads and sherpas were agreed.

8. Asia Dialogue

9. Discussion with the Asian Development Bank on a Joint Action Statement

10. Collaborations with UN-Water

11. Next Actions presented by Working Group Chairs

• Water Operators Partnerships
  Bert Diphoorn, Director Human Settlements and Finance Division UN-Habitat, shared plans to establish the Global Water Operators Partnership Alliance at UN-Habitat Headquarters in Nairobi. Antonio Miranda (WG Chair) reported the agreement with Mr. Diphoorn in the WG meeting that draft advisory committee comprising water operators and utility association will be established to advise on the G-WOPs project proposal. The advice will be given to streamline the proposal with WOPs basic concept as expressed in HAP and to make the proposal more attractive to utilities and donors. The committee will be held in June 26th through 27th, 2007 in Amsterdam. Members thanked Mr. Diphoorn for his excellent work.
  
  
• Financing
  Margaret Catley-Carlson reported on behalf of Michel Camdessus (WG Chair) focused on two actions to be taken in the next six months. The first is to emphasize the need to develop local capital markets making a link to infrastructure. The second is to provoke a review of what has been done under the Evian agreement for discussion at the G-8. The submitted work plan for Financing was approved with expectation for further works added to the document.
  
  
• Monitoring and Reporting
  Gerard Payen (WG Chair) outlined the actions taken in the areas of: strengthening the WHO-UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme; convincing national government to report annually on the number of people obtaining access to water and sanitation by access category in their country; and increasing effectiveness of global and national monitoring tools. He stressed the political sensitivities surrounding monitoring as countries do not like to be identified as not making progress. The submitted work plan for Monitoring and Reporting was approved.
  
  
• Integrated Water Resources Management
  Members agreed that concrete suggestion on input to CSD16 should be prepared by November 2007 although the dialogue with the CSD bureau may be started after Bogota meeting. The submitted work plan for IWRM was approved.
  
  
• Water and Disaster
  Hideaki Oda (WG Chair) reported that preparation for a high-level panel on water and disaster is in progress. Mr. Hiroki noted that a first planning meeting had taken place and that the panel would be chaired by Mr. Han Son-Soo. Several expressed concern about concept, output, discussion process, and deliberation of the final outcome of the panel. Members agreed the new name of the panel as High-Level Expert Panel on Water and Disaster. The panel should have open discussion on appropriate ways to achieve the objective in HAP, i.e. mitigation of water-related disaster as well as swift provision of water and sanitation during and after disaster, rather than assume that setting a target is its ultimate goal. Mr. Oda assured the High-Level Expert Panel will be manage as advised by the Board. The first meeting of the Panel is scheduled in July or August, 2007.
  
  
• Sanitation
  An updated sanitation working group action report was circulated. A revised work plan of Sanitation WG based on the discussion on the first day was submitted. Members expressed satisfaction to the progress made. The actions will focus on international year of sanitation taking into account advisory and facilitative nature of the Board's role. The submitted work plan for Sanitation was approved.
  

12. Next meeting and action

13. Other matters

14. Closing