• 17th Meeting
  Nov. 14 - 16, 2011
  Bonn, Germany
  
• 16th Meeting
  Jun. 21 - 23, 2011
  New York, USA
  
• 15th Meeting
  Nov. 29 - Dec. 1, 2010
  Seoul, South Korea
  
• 14th Meeting
  Jun. 29 - Jul. 1, 2010
  Singapore
  
• 13th Meeting
  Nov. 30 - Dec. 2, 2009
  Amsterdam, the Netherlands
  
• 12th Meeting
  May 25 - 29, 2009
  Sofia, Bulgaria
  
• 11th Meeting
  November 17- 19, 2008
  Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
  
• 10th Meeting
  May 26-28, 2008
  Tokyo, Japan
  
• 9th Meeting
  November 14-16, 2007
  Bogota, Colombia
• 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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Background

The United Nations Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation's (UNSGAB) 14th meeting was generously hosted by the Government of Singapore and the Asian Development Bank. Members met on the margins of the Singapore Water Week allowing members to participate in related events such as the Singapore Water Week opening plenary session, the Asia Pacific Water Minister's Forum and the Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize and banquet. A dialogue was held with Asia & Pacific Water Supply and Sanitation Ministers on Tuesday June 29th where participants discussed the main issues pertaining to Achieving the Millennium Development Goals for Water and Sanitation in the Asia Pacific (dialogue summary attached as Annex 1). Members advanced the Hashimoto Action Plan II objectives for financing, monitoring, sanitation, integrated water resources management, and water & disaster. Strategic discussions were held with UN-Water, WHO, OECD and DESA and on UNSGAB's strategy in relation to successor arrangements to the MDGs.

Activity Report since the 13th Board Meeting

Francois Guerquin, UNSGAB secretariat coordinator, presented UNSGAB activities between Jan - June 2010 in chronological order. Members thanked the secretariat for the updates with further discussion taking place on the following items.

World Bank Meeting: The UNSGAB Chair, Board Member Roy Torkelson and other representatives met with World Bank president Zoellick in April where the joint Peru mission report was discussed. The World Bank is interested in pursuing further missions in Africa, however thus far the countries proposed are those with only one central utility which might pose some methodological challenges. The fact that there are only a few African countries with similar utility structures to Peru was raised. The challenges of reporting on the number gaining access to water and sanitation as a result of World Bank policies was also discussed during the 45 minute session.

Agreement with Inter-American Development Bank: The Chair, Board member Roy Torkelson and other representatives met with President Moreno of the Inter-American Development Bank during his Washington trip. The IADB and UNSGAB signed an updated Joint Statement reflecting the Hashimoto Action Plan II areas of work.

Sanitation and Water for All: The Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) High-Level meeting took place 23 April at World Bank HQ in Washington DC. Since many participants including the meeting chair, were unable to attend due to the Icelandic Volcano, the UNSGAB Chair stepped into the chairing role. Francois Guerquin reported that the meeting was well attended, even if there were not as many donors as anticipated. The results will be compiled and monitored and SWA will be led for the time being by UNICEF. There are 3 main components to the SWA: the periodic High-Level Meeting, the Global Annual Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking Water and support for country interventions. In terms of UNSGAB support for the SWA, the organizers are hoping members could encourage countries to join the effort - they are also considering an African based meeting for 2011 which could be an opportunity to host a water/finance ministers meeting. A member asked why the GLAAS report only included statistics on donor inputs and not on country level financing. Another emphasized the donor-recipient nature of the SWA which is a different objective than that of the Sustainable Sanitation 5 Year Drive to 2015.

Minutes of financing working group meeting

Presentation William Streeter, Managing Director, Global Infrastructure & Project Finance Group, Asia Pacific, FitchRatings

Board member Roy Torkelson invited William Streeter to a special meeting of the financing working group to make a presentation on "developing local debt markets for infrastructure financing". William Streeter said there is considerable cash available in Asia after years of economic growth. The supply of money for infrastructure is therefore not a problem, but its efficient allocation remains a central challenge. For example infrastructure projects, as long-term assets in search of long-term financing, and pension funds, with long-term liabilities in search of long-term assets, appear to present a perfect fit for each other but this match remains elusive.

He continued his presentation by describing the prerequisites for private sector participation in infrastructure finance. Generally there is a need for:

1. Creating a relatively stable macroeconomic environment
2. Developing the legal framework
3. Ensuring a relatively stable regulatory framework
4. Developing a domestic debt market
5. Understanding the annuity value proposition of infrastructure
6. Ensuring value for money in project selection
7. Obtaining better, more reliable feasibility studies
8. Establishing a credit culture

While preparing for financing of infrastructure projects there are a number of key questions to be addressed according to William Streeter. Does the project make sense and does the project demographically fit a service need? Will there be revenues to flow to debt service and can the terms of the concession agreement be met? Are available revenues adequate to cover the debt service? What is the project's economic viability? What margins of protection do these revenues provide and can the terms of the financing agreement be met?

With regard to financing of water projects he said that water is perceived as a low yield investment with little revenue. A long-term focus is needed for financing of water projects but this is often missing. There is also repeatedly a mismatch between the public and private sector and alignment is needed between these sectors. He added to this that seed money for water utilities would be essential for training them on financing.
He concluded his presentation by addressing the issue of how to search for a bridge to reach the institutional investors. He suggested among others the following options:

1. Alignment of interest between public and private partners is important for risk sharing
2. Government guarantee mechanisms
3. Credit enhancement
4. Recycling of income from projects

UN-Habitat: Proposal on Advisory and Financing facility WOPs:

Faraj El-Awar of UN-Habitat presented to the group their proposal for setting up an advisory and financing facility for WOPs. The main objective of this facility is to help preparing utilities to access (domestic) financial markets. The financing facility would provide the following support to utilities:

1. Pre-investment technical assistance for utilities
2. Mobilization of seed funds

Faraj El-Awar indicated that UN Habitat is keen on having comprehensive feedback and suggestions from the Board on this proposal and they would be grateful if UNSGAB can support this initiative by linking/promoting it to regional development banks and other local development institutions.

Next steps:

• Financing Working Group (Roy Torkelson) to provide UN Habitat feedback on the advisory and financing facility proposal (This was completed during the Meeting and provided to Chair of Finance Committee and Faraj El-Awar)
• The Board to promote this initiative among regional development banks and local development institutions (Roy Torkelson offered to help Faraj El-Awar with this when he meets with various finance entities to seek their support.)

UNSGAB Opening Session

Opening Remarks by the UNSGAB Chair
The Chair sincerely thanked the Government of Singapore and the Asian Development Bank for hosting the UNSGAB sessions with so much hospitality and efficiency. He said the Board was honored to meet in Singapore, during the 2010 Singapore International Water Week. Singapore is a leading member of the water community, not only as organizer of this annual Water Week which gathers decision makers, politicians and business leaders from around the world, but also as a leader of technological innovation. Welcoming Mr. Tan Gee Paw, Chairman of PUB, the Singapore utility for water and sanitation, he noted that PUB had been instrumental in organizing the Singapore meeting and he thanked them for all their efforts. He also welcomed Assistant Secretary-General Mr. Thomas Stelzer as representative of the UN Secretary-General, Mrs. Anna Tibajuka, Executive-Director of UN-Habitat, Mrs. Ursula Schaefer-Preuss, Vice-President of the Asian Development Bank, and Mr. Zafar Adeel, Chair of UN-Water.

Executive Director of UN-Habitat, Ms. Anna Tibajuka
Ms. Anna Tibajuka thanked UNSGAB for both the impetus and continued collaboration on the Water Operator's Partnership Global Alliance. Extending basic services, such as water and sanitation, is critical as cities continue to grow at a veracious pace. The Alliance is gaining ground with more partnerships providing an effective means to advance development. The Alliance secretariat is expanding its support base, working with regional development banks as well as unions and NGOs. She thanked Abu Dhabi and Spain for their support.

Assistant Secretary-General Mr. Thomas Stelzer
Assistant Secretary-General Mr. Thomas Stelzer thanked the Government of Singapore for hosting the meeting. As concluded in the 2010 MDG Report released on June 23, he said, half of the population in developing regions lack basic sanitation. Furthermore, the improvements that are being made are bypassing the poorest. In sub-Saharan Africa, the richest 20 percent of the population is almost five times more likely to use an improved sanitation facility than the poorest 20 per cent. This trend is repeated throughout the developing world. He noted that many countries are talking about how equity issues must be brought more forcefully into the MDG Summit deliberations, and that the Board had been requested by the Secretary-General to be the voice of water and sanitation in this Summit. Sanitation is about equity and he urged Board members to rally around this message.

Mr. Tan Gee Paw, Chairman of PUB
Mr. Tan Gee Paw welcomed participants to Singapore and shared a personal story. Singapore, he said, has experienced tremendous development in the last generation. When he was a boy, night soil collection was still conducted by hand. Because of this experience, he said he fully understands how much human dignity suffers with a lack of safe sanitation facilities. He thanked UNSGAB for choosing Singapore as their host country and stressed that sanitation and water are issues close to his heart.

Financing Working Group

Gerard Payen, Chair of the Financing working group presented an overview of Board's action vis-a-vis the financing objectives of HAP II. He informed the group that President Sarkozy from France had announced that water and sanitation will be put on the agenda for the next G8 and G20 meetings in France. The board agreed that this is a good opportunity to start lobbying again G8 and G20 countries.

Dr. Ursula Schafer-Preuss, vice president of the ADB told the Board that ADB has allocated more than 10 billion USD to water and sanitation projects for the period 2006 - 2010. This is more than was originally targeted. Twenty percent of the total budget went to sanitation programmes. The ADB is currently preparing for the 2010 - 2020 water operational framework and they welcome UNSGAB's feedback and advice in preparing this framework. The water operational framework will focus on:

1. Wastewater
2. Expanding water operators' partnerships
3. Water governance and climate change
4. Efficient water use and demand management
5. Transboundary water management
6. Innovations and technologies

A Board member reacted that ADB is building on remarkable achievements but would like to encourage the ADB to concentrate as well on improving access to domestic financial markets for utilities. Another board member added to this that one should also look into the possibility of establishing an entity (according to the Malaysian model) that is devoted to local governance only. This entity should be able to borrow capital in local and international markets which then can be lent to local utilities and institutions.

A third Board member requested the ADB to address the issue of poor data availability of national and global expenditures for water and sanitation. Regional development banks could help national governments to get better insights into the figures of expenditures on water and sanitation.

In reaction to a remark that ADB structures their water operators partnership programme around commercial incentives, Mr. Arjun Tharpan from ADB said that the ADB follows a business approach to water, sanitation and hygiene. "If you do not treat it as a business you will never attract business". Governments need to set their water agencies free as has been done with success in Manila and Phnom Penh. He furthermore said that ADB aims at doubling the number of WOPs it supports in the region.

Vice Chair Uschi Eid sought ADB's support for the Sustainable Sanitation Five Year Drive initiative and expressed her hope that ADB will pay more attention to sanitation in the coming 5 years. She suggested that Regional Development Banks could work together for the implementation of the 5 year drive. The vice president of the ADB acknowledged the importance of UNSGAB's five year drive initiative and said that ADB stands open for further cooperation on this.

Finally Mr. Anthony Cox from the OECD shared with the group some points about the OECD's water programme and the three papers that have been issued. The OECD will in particular focus their future programmes on water resources for agriculture, municipality and industry uses. They were also considering financing for climate change adaptation.

Next steps:

• Prepare strategy for G8/G20 lobby
• Re-clarify the need for a meeting with financing ministers

Briefing UN Habitat on WOPs

Bert Diphoorn from UN-Habitat thanked the Chair of UNSGAB for his participation in the World Water Day 2010 celebrations in Nairobi. A short movie of WWD 2010 is published on the UN-Habitat website. UN-Habitat will also be involved in the organization of World Water Day 2011, which will be on Urban Water Management. UNSGAB is invited to take part in the organization of WWD 2011.

On WOPs Bert Diphoorn informed the group that the WOPs programme is on track. Worldwide new initiatives are getting off the ground and an increasing number of donors support the activities.

The next general assembly meeting of the GWOPA will be organized in Abu Dhabi from 19 to 20 January 2011. Hopefully the Chair of UNSGAB will be able to attend this critical event.

Finally Bert Diphoorn indicated that an access-to-water monitoring initiative called H2O, of UN-Habitat in partnership with Google is making good progress, and he proposed a presentation of this H2O initiative to UNSGAB during the next Board meeting.

Faraj El-Awar from UN-Habitat gave an overview of the actual WOPs that are taking place around the globe and explained to board members what a water operator's partnership entails in practice and how it is organized.

In addition he mentioned that WOPs are also being introduced in the Black Sea region after the 12th UNSGAB meeting in Sofia. He praises the good synergy between UNSGAB and GWOPA that led to these new WOP initiatives in the Black Sea region.

Sanitation Working Group

Sanitation Working Group Co-Chair Uschi Eid updated members activities related to this objective. The Sustainable Sanitation 5 Year Drive to 2015 (5YD) concept was developed during the Follow-up Conference of the International Year for Sanitation in January 2010. Since that time, the 5YD has been endorsed in the East Asia Sanitation Conference Ministerial Declaration (Feb. 2010), the Chair's Summary of the Sanitation and Water for All High-Level meeting (April 2010) and the Dushanbe Declaration on Water (June 2010). The 5YD is an advocacy vehicle to keep sanitation high on the political agenda, promote national coordination, improve sanitation monitoring while supporting sustainable sanitation solutions - all in all an effort to meet the sanitation target.

Now it is important to build momentum for a General Assembly resolution on the 5YD by creating a constituency of supporting countries under the leadership of Japan and Germany. A participant suggested that reflecting the 5YD in the outcome document of the MDG 2010 Summit would be more powerful than a stand alone resolution; however it would be critical to get the 5YD into the outcome document as soon as possible. Members agreed to quickly draft a 5YD supporting letter from the Chair that members could share with their respective countries to support inclusion of the 5YD in the MDG Summit outcome document.

Next steps

• A letter supporting reflection of the 5YD in the MDG Summit outcome document drafted and sent to UN Missions (completed during the meeting)
• A "friends of the 5YD" group composed and other steps taken to develop and pass a GA resolution - taking in account what has been achieved vis-a-vis the MDG Summit outcome document.

Uschi Eid said the working group is committed to promoting school sanitation. Part of the problem for donors is that school sanitation is not globally monitored which can be a disincentive for investing in this area. She pushed for a full WASH in Schools day during the Stockholm Water Week, which did not happen. However, there will be a WASH in Schools "Call to Action" event lead by UNICEF where UNSGAB will have a central role.

Next steps

• UNSGAB will participate in the WASH in Schools event during the Stockholm Water Week. During the event, future opportunities for collaboration with partners will be explored.

Sanitation Working Group Co-Chair, Margaret Catley-Carlson briefed members on the Omega Alliance - a coalition of the willing working to provoke a revolution in wastewater collection, treatment and reuse. Currently, the principal organizations are the Asian Development Bank, the International Water Association and UNSGAB. ADB will submit a regional technical assistance project with initial funding of $1 million effective Jan 2011 which will provide a temporary institutional home for Omega. IWA will compile a technology inventory cataloguing examples where innovative wastewater treatment is being used. UNSGAB will provide a vision statement. She also mentioned a meeting that took place that morning with UNESCAP, who is coming in as a main partner. UNSGAB was represented by Olivia L. Castillo at their Regional Dialogue on Wastewater Management, 15 - 16 June, 2010.

Bert Diphoorn, UN-Habitat welcomed UNSGAB to present the Omega Initiative at their urban wastewater seminar during Stockholm Water Week. He also drew attention to the recent UN publication "Sickwater" on these issues and noted that wastewater is being promoted as an important topic for the World Water Forum in Marseille. Francois Guerquin mentioned his participation in the first meeting of the UN-Water task force on wastewater management 9 - 11 June in Geneva, he noted that a follow-up meeting will be held during the Stockholm Water Week. Uschi Eid noted that the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA) had just appointed a new director which will allow for better collaboration with this group.

Dr Abu-Zeid informed the Board on the progress made towards the organization of a regional workshop on wastewater management in partnership with Islamic Development Bank and ICBA. The Board welcomes and supports this initiative.

Next steps

• Maggie Catley-Carlson and Leanne Burney will prepare and monitor the Omega Work Plan with the next meeting to be held on the margins of the IWA conference in Sept.
• Maggie Catley-Carlson will represent UNSGAB in the wastewater seminar in Stockholm.
• Francois Guerquin will continue to represent UNSGAB in the UN-Water wastewater task force and related activities.
• Dr Abu-Zeid will report in the next Board meeting about the regional workshop.

Water and Disaster Working Group

Working Group Chair Juanita Castano reported that the Working Group met the previous night and decided on the way forward. It was decided that there is a need to convene a small group, before the next UNSGAB meeting, of people related to the High-Level Experts Panel to identify and choose key actions out of the agreed ones in the HLEP report to make them happen.

The result of the work of this small group should be brought to the next UNSGAB meeting in November in Korea to have a dialogue with UNSGAB. According to Hashimoto Action Plan II, objective 1 states that once the HLEP puts a mechanism in place, "UNSGAB will collaborate on measures to draw attention to the key recommendations".

So, the outcome of this dialogue should be:

1. to identify how UNSGAB can support the work of the High Level Panel (objective 1 of our Action Plan)
2. to identify concrete actions that UNSGAB can undertake to help strengthen political will to reduce loss of livelihoods from water related disasters, as this is fundamental for sustainable development and CC adaptation, as stated in objective 2 of our action plan.

She gave the floor to Dr. Han to explain further his ideas about the meeting in Seoul and how he envisages the work of the High Level Panel and its relation to UNSGAB.

Dr. Han said that climate change and water management are major challenges today and that water related disasters are the link between these issues, in this regard the HELP report is very important. The United States Army Corp of Engineers has suggested the development of a theoretical framework for disaster preparedness to provide a platform for how to manage water resources. A mechanism to support preparedness is also relevant for the Intergovernmental panel on climate change. UNESCAP is also interested in joining the discussion, he said, by possibly hosting a workshop on water and disaster. When UNSGAB meets in Seoul, parliamentarians from the Asia-Pacific region will be invited to discuss water & disaster and the HLEP report with Board Members. Dr. Han also briefed members on the new Green Growth Institute officially launched on 16 June. He said a main focus will be how to internalize climate change as a national issue. - this topic is very much related to water. A critical input is innovation and new technology.

Next steps

• convene a small group before the next UNSGAB meeting, of people related to the High-Level Experts Panel to identify and choose key actions out from the agreed ones in the report of the HLEP of experts, to make them happen.
• The result of the work of this small group should be brought to the next UNSGAB meeting in November in Korea to have a dialogue with UNSGAB

Integrated Water Resources Management Working Group

Uschi Eid gave an update on recent activity which included a letter to EU parliamentarians in Austria and Luxemburg regarding the EU block ratification. AMCOW was also approached and requested to include the Convention in their workplan. She also mentioned an invitation to participate in a Convention related event during the Stockholm Water Week session. Members thanked Yordan Uzunov for his excellent paper on "Global, multi- and bilateral (fresh) water-related agreements and comments on their compliance with principles of IWRM"

Next steps

• Both the EU and AMCOW related processes will be monitored and supported.

Working Group Chair Judith Rees recalled the discussion about how UNSGAB could be involved in the UNFCCC process. Pre-Copenhagen, there had been an assumption that COP 16 would pay more attention to sectoral issues, however, this seems unlikely to be the case. In terms of funding flows for mitigation and adaptation it looks as though discussions are focusing more on country allocations than sectoral allocations. And so, to have an influence on the amount of adaptation funds directed to water it is necessary to work at the country level. The Stockholm International Water Institute is working to help ensure that water appears in guidelines and advice to countries on the internal allocation of adaptation funds. Judith Rees was in touch with SIWI during the UN-Water Climate Change task force meeting, and possible collaboration will be explored.

She drew attention to a proposal from the National Water Commission of Mexico, CONAGUA, with a request to co-write technically sound editorials on water and climate change to be placed in international publications prior to the next COP in Mexico. CONAGUA is also interested in co-hosting an event with UNSGAB during COP-16. Members agreed that the editorial was a good idea, however, given capacity constraints and conflict with the 15th UNSGAB Board meeting schedule, hosting an event was not feasible.

Judith gave an update on her participation in the UN-Water Climate Change task force meeting 10 - 12 May in Bonn. The UN-Water meeting really focused on internal process issues. There was a lot of discussion about a mapping exercise on which agencies were working on what aspects of water and climate change and where. The exercise did not reach beyond the task force members - there was no input from the World Bank or Habitat for example, or from bilateral donors. To be really useful as a tool to aid collaboration and avoid duplication the mapping exercise needed to include both planned and operational activities but some UN agencies were reluctant to reveal their plans. The task force had in its workplan a project to look at the coordination conditions in a handful of countries under the One UN banner, however, several agencies raised concerns since UN-Water is not an implementing agency.

She also mentioned IFC's request for UNSGAB to participate in a Mexican Workshop based on the Water Resources Group "Economics of Water Resources 2030" report produced by McKinsey. In discussing this issue the working group agreed that UNSGAB should be cautious about promoting a fee for service tool - a better role for UNSGAB is to encourage countries to improve their water resources management approach.

Next steps

• UNSGAB will participate with CONAGUA on the editorial project but will decline the offer to co-host a side event
• Judith Rees & Leanne Burney will be in touch with SIWI regarding their country-level guidelines to direct adaptation funds to the water sector.

Monitoring Working Group

Gerard Payen, Chair of the monitoring working group informed the group about the letter UNSGAB received from UNICEF and WHO. This letter was a response to the recommendations made by UNSGAB last year with regard to the improvement of the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP). The JMP team appreciates the points raised by UNSGAB but they cannot make firm commitments to address them in their future operations because funding is limited. It is positive that the JMP is working on reconciliation of national datasets, however monitoring of water quality and wastewater collection/treatment is hardly being done in the JMP.

Gerard Payen shared his concern that progress on access to improved water resources masks the regression in access to tap water. He also observes that the JMP 2010 report provides regional trends. One can see that access to improved water resources increases in the rural areas but that access rates are decreasing in urban areas.

Ms Maria Neira from WHO (Director of department on health and environment) said that the JMP is a tool to measure the health related MDG's and is very useful for influencing policy makers. Especially open defecation figures can be used as a pressing factor. She expressed her concern to be careful with addressing rural-urban disparities because we do not want to divert funding from rural to urban areas.

Next steps:

• Help raising funds for JMP operations
• Encourage JMP to do more on water quality and wastewater monitoring
• Accept UN-Habitat's proposal of a presentation on H2O initiative during the next Board meeting

Gerard Payen informed the group that the UN-Water/WHO released the global annual assessment of sanitation and drinking water (GLAAS), a report that attempts to describe the water economics and water governance situation in a number of countries. The main conclusion is that the GLAAS report provides useful information on water governance and donor contributions for water and sanitation but there is still hardly any information on water economics and national expenditures for water and sanitation.

Next step:

• UNSGAB will continue to encourage national governments and relevant organizations like OECD, World Bank and Regional Development Banks to do more on collecting economic data for water and sanitation.

Robert Bos from WHO welcomes the attention and support of UNSGAB for wastewater. He said that the safe use of wastewater for agriculture is a very important issue for WHO. Through the Sick Water report, the Omega initiative and the UN water task force on wastewater, wastewater is gaining more agenda space.

Next steps:

• See sanitation

Gerard Payen informed the Board that the discussion on the post 2015 agenda is expected to start after the MDG Review Summit in September 2010. It is the role of UNSGAB to stimulate the discussion and to contribute to the preparatory works. Since monitoring objective 5 is a priority issue for the Board a full session was dedicated to this topic the next day, Thursday July 1.

In this session Gerard Payen gave an introductory presentation in which he described the MDG challenges for drinking water: 1) Many countries are still off track for access to water, 2) Safe water quality is not monitored, 3) And water availability is an issue as well.

He said that a separate MDG target for water is preferred and we have to be more ambitious in setting the water targets for after 2015. For the sanitation MDG targets there is a need to address open defecation and to clarify the issue of shared toilets. It is also important not to underestimate the water needs of good sanitation. Finally he said that a target for wastewater needs to be considered as well. He concluded his presentation with saying that UNSGAB should stimulate the discussion and steer to appropriate decisions with an adequate time frame. It is UNSGAB's role to come up with options and to clarify the challenges.

Board members generally supported the presented ideas. Their reactions mainly focused on whether we should advocate for country targets rather than global targets, whether we should consider governance and human rights issues in the target setting and whether UNSGAB should intervene at the technical level or/and at the political level. The general consensus was that UNSGAB should concentrate on the political discussion and keep focus on access to water and sanitation aiming at the other half of the population that is still deprived from access to clean water. Gerard Payen however advised the Board that if the scope is too limited/simple there is the risk to exclude a large group of people (especially those who have access to an improved water source but of which the water quality is still very poor). Moreover he said that we cannot neglect either the water sanitation challenges in the urban areas.

Several emphasized the need to not get embroiled in UN political processes. Several mentioned that these processes were usually lengthy, resource-intensive, and some felt unproductive in terms of impact. Most noted that the real potential impact of UNSGAB would be lost in lengthy text drafting (which then precluded independent action by UNSGAB to influence the on going processes.) There was some, but not universal, agreement that targeted interventions with certain influential players would bring a much greater possibility of influence and success.

Roy Torkelson closed the discussion by saying that from his experience we should not only focus on goals and needs but also on costs. Many environmental processes failed by not recognizing the costs timely.

Next steps:

• Chair to send a letter with recommendations of UNSGAB on post 2015 to key countries after MDG Review Summit.

UN-Water Presentation

Dr. Zafar Adeel, Chair, UN-Water & Director, UNU Institute for Water, Environment and Health outlined the scope of UN-Water and touched on their major outputs and new strategic directions. Potential areas for further collaboration were outlined as well as specific opportunities including: a MDG side event, events leading up to Rio+20 (Green Economics Conference- Dec 2011 &WF Marseilles - Mar 2012); targeted UN meetings (COPs of UNFCCC, UNCBD and UNCCD); involvement with the new UN-Water Regional Level Coordination Task Force; and building on the relationship with the Regional Development Banks; and joining forces IYS follow-up (half-decade). Members thanked Zafar Adeel for his presentation, engaged in a substantive discussion and identified specific future activities.

Information sharing
The fact that, even now, there seem to be turf battles taking place within UN-Water was raised. Some agencies seem to have the perception - what do we get out of coordination? The answer should be that UN agencies are meant to serve countries and not their own interests - still, there appears to be a lot of defensiveness and reluctance to share information. Zafar Adeel agreed that there were turf battles in the beginning, but things are improving. For example, UN-Water funding has been a catalyst for bringing agencies together - money is a good integrator. In terms of UN-Water reports, all the agencies come together on shared and consistent messages. We are finding creative ways to reduce friction, he said. On the country level, there are challenges for the UN to work in an integrated way around water. In Tajikistan, Zafar Adeel explained, UN-Water worked with the country team to develop country briefs that identify the national challenges for water and sanitation issues. The hope is these briefs can be used to target aid.

Assessing Impact
A member asked if UN-Water had estimated and tabulated, across the UN-Water members, what financial resources are available and how they are used. This information, she said, would be useful to UNSGAB to understand what individual programmes are doing - since the Board is interested in making things happen. In presenting its work at times, UN-Water focuses on the reports it is writing, rather than showing how UN-Water member's money and work is leveraging greater investments or is making things happen on the ground. Zafar Adeel said UN-Water is calculating how much members spend on water issues, this is not so difficult. In terms of leveraging, there is a sense that the leveraging impact is significant - however, the important question to answer is whether there is a shifting priority for water within the UN-System. At this point, we can't say yes, he said, but within 2 to 3 years, UN-water should be able to document the changes within the UN system. The fact that the GLAAS report presents a compendium of donor investment was raised. Donor investment for water and sanitation will not increase significantly, and if it does, such investments don't go to the countries most in need. Countries are doing their own investments. If UN-Water could look at the needs and outlook around water and sanitation, without a donor-focus, that would be a product that the world really needs.

Points of Collaboration
UN-Water provides UNSGAB with a one-window shop into the UN system, Zafar Adeel said. It was suggested that UNSGAB could be a useful mechanism to mainstream water messages and approaches into the UN system - one place could be the Chief Executive Board. Zafar Adeel said the onus is on UN-water to develop the messages and he invited UNSGAB to identify which messages should be taken to the CEB level. A member suggested a practical approach involving a close reading of both the Hashimoto Action Plan II and the UN-Water work plan to identify advantageous opportunities for collaboration. The fact that UNSGAB can not really influence UN operations was raised by a member.

Zafar Adeel explained that UN-Water is working in an organic way with the WOPs Alliance in an effort to bring them into the UN-Water envelop - this is an interesting example of UNSGAB floating an idea - and then it moves into UN-Water's implementation agenda.

Next steps
The following specific opportunities for collaboration were identified.

• UN-Water and UNSGAB will work closely on the Sustainable Sanitation 5 Year Drive to 2015
• UN-Water and UNSGAB will identify several publications to collaborate on.
• UN-Water and UNSGAB will explore hosting a side event during the Marseille World Water Forum and the 2010 MDG Summit side event.
• UN-Water and UNSGAB will build on the outcomes of the Sick Water report and the UN-Water wastewater taskforce to build momentum for wastewater collection, treatment and reuse issues

Closed session: finalization and endorsement of strategic decisions

Members met in closed session to elaborate on earlier discussions and to consider strategic issues pertaining to the Hashimoto Action Plan II.

Wrap-up Session

Next steps