Page 1 of 3

ISSUE: 1

QUESTION OF: Assuring universal access to clean water and proper sanitation

CO-SUBMITTERS: ICRC, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, IFAD, South Africa, Somalia, Switzerland, Haiti, Vietnam, Spain, Cote D’Ivoire, Denmark

THE SPECIAL CONFERENCE,

Defining universal access to clean water and proper sanitation, bearing in mind the access of water as a human right, and expressing the willingness to give content and effect to this right, and will be a way of encouraging the international community and governments to enhance their efforts to satisfy basic human needs, such as proper sanitation and accessibility to clean water, which leads to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, as stated by the United Nations Development Program, Water as a Human Right,

Bearing in mind that Article I.1 of General Comment No.15, adopted by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights states that water “…is a prerequisite for the realization of other human rights”,

Deeply concernedabout the lack of universal access to basic sanitation and clean water around the world, wherein approximately 884 million citizens have poor or no access to safe drinking water and 2.6 billion have no access to basic sanitation, 1.5 million children under five years of age die every year due to lack of water and proper sanitation, from diseases such as Arsenicosis, Cholera, Fluorosis, Guinea Worm Disease and several others which could easily be prevented if they had the most basic sanitation and access to clean water,

Noting with deep concern that at any one time, close to half of all people in developing countries are suffering from health problems caused by poor water and sanitation, unclean water and poor sanitation being the world's second biggest killer of children, and 443 million school days are lost each year to water-related illness, according to the UN Organization, Water for Life,

Firmly believing that universal access to basic sanitation and clean water not only benefits society, it also benefits the economy as a precondition for sustainable development,according to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, and it also benefits the green economy, as it supports sustainable development which will eventually eradicate poverty and lack of basic sanitation and clean water,

Bearing in mind that the UN General Assembly orally revised a resolution calling on international organizations to provide financial resources and increasing chances and efforts to provide safe, clean and accessible water and basic sanitation, with 122 votes in favor and none against,

Approvingthe actions of organizations such as UN Water and NGOs in trying to improve the management of water resources and its equal distribution,

Underliningthat coordinating hygiene, health and sanitation awareness programs in schools and putting some sentences to school’s toilets would emphasize the importance of access to clean water and sanitation,

  1. Strongly encouragesthe provision of an adequate, affordable early learning center, elementary, middle and high school, for the poor and low middle class, which would provide the population with sufficient education about basic sanitation and hygiene;
  1. Emphasizes the importance of the following measures adopted by UNICEF in reaching the target set by the millennium goals:

a)A partnership with communities, especially women and children, inplanning, implementing and maintaining water and sanitation systems,

b)Working directly with community-based organizations and communities and families themselves to ensure that households have access to a clean and secure supply of water, and safe and convenient sanitary facilities,

c)Hygiene promotion, especially in schools, to maximize the health benefits of water, focusing in particular on the survival, growth and development of young children;

  1. Calls upon all relevant Member States and United Nations Organizations (UNOs) to support and promote the national programs implemented by UNICEF to increase equitable and sustainable access to safe water;
  1. Recognizes the global monitoring of the water supply and sanitation sector through the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP), which is the United Nations System instrument used to measure progress at country, regional and global levels in achieving the Millennium Development Goals water and sanitation target;
  1. Further requests the promotion of safe and sustainable water supplies in countries with high child mortality rates through improved water resources management by implementing measures to protect the freshwater resource base;
  1. Urges the members of the United Nations to meet the 8th millennium goal regarding the development of global partnerships in order to assist each other in providing access to clean water and meeting the target by 2015;
  1. Calls upon the international community to adopt and follow the new scale named the UN Water Supply and Sanitation Committee (UNWSSC) to be defined and enforced as the following,

a)The scale will be from 0 – 5; 0 being proper access to clean water and sanitation, and 5 being little to no access to clean water and sanitation,

b)A UN body will be appointed to rank all countries with an unbiased opinion,

c)Issues such as health, concentration of population, upkeep of facilities, access to facilities, sanitation of accessible water, proper disposal of waste cost of available water and funds available to the country for the purpose of purchasing proper facilities for its people,

d)This organization will be funded dually by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations;

  1. Proposes that the UNWSSC send out a development team to:

a)Drill burr holes, which will make clean water more available, thus leading to better health,

b)Providing water-storage containers which would collect purify and store fresh rain water which would be highly useful throughout the year,

c)Purify water using supplied equipment so that bacteria, pesticides, animal waste, and waterborne disease carriers are purified into clean, drinkable water,

d)Construct latrines and provide them in rural areas by building waste management facilitations;

  1. Encourages the construction of sustainable water projects to ensure long term access to clean water:

a)Implements water filtration systems for the purpose of sterilizing contaminated water sources such as:

  1. BioKube filtration system,
  2. Dan Water system for purpose of minimizing loss of drinkable water,
  3. SkyTEM geophysics aps to detect groundwater with airborne mechanisms;
  1. Decidesto remain actively seized upon the matter.