International Conference on Water and the Environment, 1992

Access to safe water and hygienic sanitation is an essential part of the quest for food security and a sustainable environment, as recognized by past international conferences. But, as the UN Conference on Water held at Mar del Plata, Argentina, in 1977 noted, relatively little attention had been attached to the systematic measurement of water resources and the compilation and processing of whatever data were available had been seriously neglected. To heighten international awareness, the UN declared the 1980s as the International Drinking Water and Sanitation Decade, and a Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) was established to stimulate and monitor progress. Despite failure to meet the quantitative goals established for the decade, much was learnt from the experience gained, including realization of the importance of comprehensive and balanced county-specific approaches to water and sanitation problems. It was also appreciated that the achievement of the goals set at the beginning of the decade would take more time and investment than originally thought. A Global Consultation on Safe Water and Sanitation for the 1990s was held in New Delhi, India, in 1990. The New Delhi Statement that was approved at the end of the consultation, and appropriately entitled ‘Some for all rather than more for some’, stated that: ‘Safe water and proper means of waste disposal … must be at the centre of integrated water resource management’. And the World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children’ adopted at the World Summit for Children in 1990 stated: ‘We will promote the provision of clean water in all communities for all their children, as well as universal access to sanitation’.