New York, 5 June 2003—Water is essential for life. We need it for drinking, producing food, washing, generating power, transportation, industrial processes, and ensuring the sustainability of the Earth’s ecosystem. Yet not only is this life-giving source being rapidly depleted and increasingly polluted—but far too many people lack access to it. That is why this year’s World Environment Day focuses on the key message “Water—two Billion People are Dying for it!”

Although water is a finite resource, we have doubled our consumption of water over the last 50 years and failed to prevent the degradation of water quality. At the same time, the gulf in water use between rich and poor countries has grown starker. A child born in the developed world consumes 30 to 50 times the water resources of a child from a developing country. Currently 1.2 billion people do not have access to a safe water supply and nearly twice that number lack adequate basic sanitation.

The challenge is enormous. To meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, agreed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development last year, which include the targets of halving by 2015, the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and proper sanitation, the world will need to connect approximately 200,000 people to clean water and 400,000 people to improved sanitation each day.

That will require three things: first, innovative financing mechanisms to assure the necessary doubling in financial flows to developing countries for water and sanitation—from current spending of US$10 billion each year, to about $20 billion a year; second, greatly improved governance of scarce water resources, built around holistic, integrated water resources management strategies that encompass priorities from drinking to agriculture and industrial development—and third, a clear focus on building capacity where it is needed most: working directly with local communities—especially women—to help craft and implement their own solutions. UNDP is committed to help developing countries tackle all three challenges and by doing so help achieve all the MDGs. As a demonstration of UNDP’s support for local efforts to achieve these global development targets, this year’s World Environment Day also marks the call for nominations for the Equator Prize 2004 – a prestigious international award recognizing outstanding local efforts to reduce poverty while protecting the environment.