Your Excellency, President of the Republic of Uganda,
Ministers, Colleagues, Friends,
Ladies and Gentlemen,


It is an honor to be invited as Vice-Chair of the United Nations Secretary General's Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation to this conference. Our Board has a global mandate, but we focus special attention on Africa, since the greatest challenges in water and sanitation are on your continent.

Our Board has enjoyed very productive working relations with AMCOW under the first President, Minister Maria Mutagamba and her successor, Minister Itoua from the Congo, with the African Development Bank and the AU. We all worked closely in the run up to the 2008 AU Summit where leaders expressed their commitment in the Sharm el-Sheikh Declaration for "Accelerating the Achievement of Water and Sanitation Goals in Africa". And I am happy to be here today to continue building on this foundation of trust, shared values and common objectives; namely to allow every citizen on earth a dignified life with clean water and decent sanitation. And it is you, the African water suppliers, which are hereby playing a crucial role.

This September in New York, leaders will gather to assess our collective progress on the Millennium Development Goals including the water and sanitation targets. Many African colleagues and friends urged our Board to help take forward the Sharm el-Sheik commitments together with the ideas and enthusiasm generated here in Uganda to the leaders gathered at the MDG Summit. We all understand that every dollar invested in sanitation and water yields up to an eight fold return. However, this message must urgently reach Prime Ministers, Presidents and Finance Ministers during the MDG Summit this September.

Indeed, you Mr. President, are well equipped to take a strong message to the MDG Summit about water and sanitation investments. Uganda is a fitting messenger given its own commendable progress. By prioritizing water and sanitation in your National Development Plan, Uganda is making impressive gains, not only through a strong political will, but also due to professional institutions like the Ugandan Water and Sewerage Corporation.

However, the news about global sanitation coverage is bleak: Without drastic and immediate action, we will miss the sanitation target by 13 percentage points. The International Year of Sanitation in 2008 certainly generated sanitation action, but we need a further urgent and concerted effort for the next five years. This January, Japan held a stock taking conference where participants proposed an initiative called "Sustainable Sanitation - The 5 Year Drive to 2015." A few days later it was endorsed by Ministers in Manila, at the Second East Asia Ministerial Conference on Sanitation and Hygiene. UNSGAB is fully behind this new effort end calls upon you, Mr. President, and the other African Leaders to keep sanitation high on the international agenda and decide upon this half decade at the UN General Assembly in September in New York.

UNSGAB will urge leaders to recognize that the most efficient, cost-effective way to spur progress for all MDGs is investment in basic sanitation, which deliver on health and especially child mortality, on education, on economic and social development. Before 2015, we must make sanitation a top priority!

During the "Fife Years Drive", we have to bring sanitation for schools on center stage. Sanitation in schools directly increases school attendance. This is true especially for girls, as about ten percent drop out when they come into menstruation age and there are no gender separated toilets to give them privacy for personal hygiene. In addition since children are critical change agents, improved school sanitation also has a valuable leverage impact in the difficult struggle to change cultural norms toward sanitation and to increase public understanding of the links between sanitation, hygiene, health and gender equality.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
this conference focuses on water. I decided to focus on the dirty side of water, as this side is too often forgotten and surrounded by taboos. Our advisory board - under the leadership of His Royal Highness, the Prince of Orange, who sends his best wishes to the conference - has decided, to bring sanitation into the limelight, because only with decent sanitation there is a dignified life.

Thank you.