In a context in which cities are increasingly populated and need for water is growing exponentially, the World Water Day celebrated on 22 March, has been devoted in its 2011 edition to an adequate management of water in urban areas. Under the theme “Water for Cities – Responding to the Urban Challenge”, attention has been drawn to the need to ensure both water supply and adequate sanitation in all urban areas.

In the occasion of the celebration of the 17th World Water Day and the 2nd annual European Water Day, the European Commission has highlighted the need for all people, no matter where they live, to have access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. These two conditions, considered as minimal for living healthily and with dignity, are not available for the 884 million people across the world who still lack access to improved water sources, and the more than 2.6 billion people who lack access to acceptable sanitation.

In Europe, nearly 75% of Europeans live in cities. This fact, not only causes an extraordinary pressure over water resources in cities, but also requires adequate sanitation infrastructures. Better and more efficient water management will be crucial in the future, not only for Europe, but for cities all around the globe.

However, as highlighted by Commissioner Janez Potočnik in charge for Environmental issues on the days prior to the celebration of the World Water Day, ensuring sustainable development will not happen overnight and is not just a matter of transposing an EU directive into national law. Collection networks and treatment plants have to be planned, financed and executed, requiring sound knowledge, careful planning, the right amount of money, the right people, as well as the involvement both policy makers and citizens. It is European Commission's role to help to generate all that.

Access to water and sanitation, a universal human right

In the International context, all countries are responsible for ensuring that all citizens fully enjoy human rights, including equal access to safe drinking water and sanitation. In this line, the United Nations General Assembly has recently recognised water and sanitation as a human right, and Human Rights Council's has specified that this right is part of the human right to an adequate standard of living.

The European Union, which acknowledges these recognitions, presented in 2010 the EU initiative for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), providing an extra 1 billion euro for African, Caribbean and Pacific countries and focusing on those MDGs that are most off-track, including water and sanitation. In this context, in the occasion of the celebration of the World Water Day, the Commission has announced the launch of a pooling mechanism in the framework of the ACP-EU Water Facility. 40 million euro will be made available under this mechanism, which has been created to blend grants from the European Development Fund (EDF) with loans from the EU multilateral and bilateral finance institutions.