2006: 14o Anniversary of the Inter-American Water Day (IAWD)

Theme1 of the IAWD 2006:
"Toward a New Culture of the Water"

By 2015, it is expected that the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and of the world in general to halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation, as part of their commitment for the fulfillment of Target 10 of the Goal Seven of the Declaration of the Millennium.

In LAC is estimated a population of approximately 536 million inhabitants 2, of which 60 million people have no access to improved drinking water sources; of these, two thirds are rural populations. On the other hand, 137 million people lack access to improved sanitation facilities, of which a little more than half are concentrated in rural populations. Of the urban populations with access to sanitation facilities, only 14% treat their effluents. The other 86% discharges around 516 m3/s of wastewater without treatment to bodies of surface water, polluting potential water sources for the water consumption and degrading the aquatic ecosystems.

In Latin America the growing demand for the drinking water supply and the collection of the wastewaters have postponed the attention of other stages of the water management within the basin, such as its intake and storage for human consumption and other uses, as well as the treatment of the domestic wastewater and its appropriate final disposal or use in productive activities such as the agriculture, environmental services and others.

This lack of wastewater treatment is constituted as a danger for the health, where most of water-borne diseases has relationship with the lack of drinking water, due to the use of polluted waters and to the poor knowledge on hygiene. The deficient management of the water resource, including the wastewater discharges, together with the limitations in the water treatment infrastructure for human consumption, deteriorates the quality of the water that is distributed to the users.

"To improve the management and development of the water resources is a critical factor to achieve the widest execution in the group of Objectives of Development of the Millennium… to reduce the infant mortality, to improve the maternal health and to combat the main diseases…"

"Health, dignity and development: what will it take?"
Final Report of the Team of Work in Water and Sanitation of the United Nations Millennium Project.

To reach an efficient management of the water resource, a new paradigm of environmental and social sustainability is proposed, that implies to promote deep changes in our scales of values and in our model of life toward a new culture of the water.

Note: The Inter-American Water Day is a regional initiative, carried out together with the Inter-American Association of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering (AIDIS), the Caribbean Water and Wastewater Association (CWWA), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Organization of the American States (OAS), Pan-American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) and the Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP/ORPALC).

1Theme suggested by consensus between SDE/CEPIS-BS and AIDIS, for this unique year. We are been working in a coordinate proposal to develop a strategy of long-term for the definition of the topics of IAWD for a period of five year in harmony with the Water International Decade: "Water for Life 2005-2015” and in fulfillment of the Millennium Development Goals 2000-2015 that will be consulted with the countries.
2 Middle Term Evaluation of the Joint Monitoring Program (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation of the WHO and UNICEF - OMS/UNICEF, 2004.

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