Address by Mr Federico Mayor, Director-General of UNESCO at the Twelfth Session of the Intergovernmental Council of the International Hydrological Programme (IHP)

Mr Chairperson,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It gives me great pleasure to address the IHP Intergovernmental Council not only as Director-General of UNESCO but also as a scientist who believes that you are dealing with one of the most important challenges that humanity is facing on the eve of a new century. At the beginning of this address I would therefore like to reassure you that I will respect the level of funding for IHP approved by the Member States of UNESCO at the General Conference in October/November last year. These funds have been deferred not cut, and they will be reallocated in keeping with my belief in the importance of water issues.

I extend a warm welcome to the members of the Council and in particular to the representatives of the 22 Member States elected to the Council at the twenty-eighth session of UNESCO's General Conference. I am also glad to see that many Member States that are not members of the Council have sent observers to this session, demonstrating their continued close interest in the International Hydrological Programme. It gives me special pleasure to greet, for the first time at the Council, the representatives of the Republic of South Africa.

It is also gratifying to note the presence of observers from the United States of America and the United Kingdom, which have never ceased to participate actively in IHP activities. I welcome too the representatives of the United Nations system and those of other governmental and non-governmental organizations.

We are delighted to see many familiar faces who last week attended the Third IHP/IAHS George Kovacs Colloquium devoted to risk, reliability and uncertainty in water resources systems. The Colloquium was a great success and proof of the wisdom of your Council's decision some six years ago that administrative sessions should be preceded by a scientific meeting addressing frontier issues of your science.

I also have to report that the International Hydrology Prize of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences, a prestigious award sponsored by UNESCO and WMO, was awarded to Professor D.C. Midgley of South Africa, whom I am sure many of you know as an eminent contributor to the science of hydrology and as an outstanding teacher of South African hydrology. The Secretary of IHP informs me that it is almost impossible to find a water expert or scientist in South Africa who was not a Midgley student.

Those of you who participated in the last session of the Council perhaps remember the leitmotiv of my address on that occasion. I said that "In my view water is going to be the issue of the 21st Century: the most valuable resource, the incomparable treasure". I should like this morning to develop this theme a little further.

Today, access to water is considered a basic human right. But is there - and will there be - enough water to go round ? Can water be considered a free commodity which is available in unlimited quantities ? The answer has to be no. This realization led, some three decades ago, to the launching of the International Hydrological Decade of UNESCO with the aim of assessing the availability of water at various scales, from regional to global. The Decade came up with some very basic data which, despite certain refinements, remain valid and are still widely used in characterizing the global water situation. They include the facts that 97 and a half per cent of all water on earth is salt water, primarily in the oceans; that most of the remaining 2.5 per cent of fresh water is stored in the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland and as shallow ground water; and that the most accessible water resource for human and ecosystem use - the fresh water available in lakes, reservoirs and rivers - amounts to only 0.26 per cent of the total amount of freshwater storage or 0.007 per cent of all water on Earth.

Clearly, fresh water is, although renewable, a very limited and vulnerable resource.

The importance of water was strongly underscored during the UNCED process. It is no accident that Chapter 18, on the protection of the quality and supply of freshwater resources, is the lengthiest of all the chapters in Agenda 21 for the follow-up of the Earth Summit. Chapter 18 of Agenda 21 is a very significant text as it charts a clear path for the application of integrated approaches to the development, management and use of water resources. Of the seven programme areas identified for the freshwater sector, IHP is directly involved in five areas - ranging from water resources assessment to the impacts of climate change on water resources.

In speaking of assessment I would like to mention that, as a follow-up to UNCED, the UN Commission for Sustainable Development decided two years ago to launch a special project on the Comprehensive Assessment of the Freshwater Resources of the World and invited governments and various UN Agencies to take part in the study. UNESCO's IHP, together with the World Meteorological Organization, was made responsible for the part concerned with assessing the supply, availability and use of the world's water resources. This contribution is essentially based upon a major international research effort conducted by IHP over the past six years under the leadership of Professor Shiklomanov. Its findings are soon to be published in a monograph entitled "World Water Resources at the Beginning of the XXIth Century", which will be presented to the world scientific community at an international UNESCO Conference being organized on this subject.

Water is becoming a preoccupation at the highest policy-making levels. Only recently I had occasion to talk with the Prime Minister of Malaysia on the importance of the management and safeguarding of water. This very morning, in the course of a conversation on his report on education for the twenty-first century, I spoke with Mr Jacques Delors on the problem of water as one of the main challenges for Europe and the world. We considered the possibilities for making water a matter of international solidarity rather than dispute, for making large investments in the channelling and redistribution of water.

Some courageous decisions are needed regarding the environment and natural resources. For example, there is the question of artificial fertilizer and pesticides that lead to the contamination of water. These need to be used much less in the future or applied on a more "scientific basis". Then there is the need for more "eco-jobs" that help to avoid these problems. We need to give greater attention to research on direct nitrogen uptake from the atmosphere, which will contribute to the management of natural resources and reduce the negative impact of artificial additives on the soil. We must strive for a comprehensive view of this issue, which has to be placed not only at the top of the scientific agenda but of the political agenda also. Above all, we must think of water not only at a national or subregional level but as a global treasure that must be better shared in the future.

Since the last session of your Council, the activities of the International Hydrological Programme have been focused on two overlapping areas. The first concern was the finalization of IHP-IV activities - in particular, the implementation of the last of its three stages. It is for you to judge the success of this crucial operation. The second area of importance was the preparation of the final programme of IHP-V and the launching of its new phase.

As you will recall, the 28th session of the General Conference approved the continuation of the International Hydrological Programme through to the next century. The preparations for the Fifth Phase started quite some time ago, in fact before the Rio Summit, and over the past four years an extremely wide consultation process has taken place on the design of the latest phase of a programme that is the only science and education programme on freshwater resources in the United Nations system. This phase will be devoted to "Hydrology and Water Resources Development in a Vulnerable Environment" and will be centred around the four principal areas you have chosen as priorities. The machinery was set in motion six months or so ago by your Bureau, which appointed six international Steering Committees, nineteen working groups and three rapporteurs who will mainly be responsible over the next six years for the various activities under the IHP-V projects. I am delighted to note that every project will be underpinned by a network of co-operating partners from IHP National Committees and partner NGOs.

Apart from regular programme activities, there was another important activity that has taken place since your last session, in which many of you have played an active part. I refer of course to the External Evaluation of IHP, which I am pleased to say resulted in the presentation to the General Conference of a largely positive report on the Programme's record over the past ten years.

Looking forward to IHP-V, you have clearly set yourself an enormous task for the period 1996-2001, even if details of the plan and the structure remain to be discussed. Despite significant concentration resulting in a reduction of some thirty per cent in the number of projects as compared with the fourth phase of IHP, it is still a huge programme which requires strong co-operation, both intellectually and financially.

Indeed, IHP-V - as befits a global science and education programme - must be seen as a worldwide effort on the part of Member States, regional and international governmental and non-governmental organizations. It is your programme and needs your intellectual and financial contribution, as UNESCO alone cannot finance the whole range of activities foreseen. I am sure you will understand the emphasis I place on financial matters. Although the planned UNESCO regular budget contribution to IHP for the 1996-1997 biennium significantly exceeds previous figures ($2,795,000 under the regular budget in document 28 C/5, as compared with $2,589,800 in the 27 C/5, 40 % of funds in both bienna being earmarked for Field Units), it certainly is not sufficient to carry out all the activities foreseen. And,as you know, many activities that ideally should have had a place in IHP-V have had to be deferred. It is therefore important that a part of national and international funds earmarked for funding national research and education programmes in hydrology and water resources should be mobilized to help achieve the goals of IHP. Here is a crucial role for the IHP National Committees to play. To do so, however, the National Committees must be given proper recognition and the means to shape national policies in hydrology and water resources research and education. It is notable in this connection that in those countries where IHP has the greatest impact the National Committees often act as government advisors on how best to spend national funds earmarked for hydrology research and education.

I should like to emphasize here the importance of funds available in the General Environmental Facility for issues related with hydrology. I am a little surprised that these funds are very often devoted more to biodiversity goals than to hydrological, geological and other aspects of environmental protection. I therefore would very much like to encourage National Committees to study the possibility of getting support from the Fund that was created in the follow-up to the UNCED meeting in Rio de Janeiro because it was felt that a comprehensive approach was required for the safeguarding of the environment.

Clearly some countries are in a position to do more than others. Equally, certain countries have a special responsibility towards others. Here is where the IHP network can help. IHP, in its new phase, must - more than ever - be a two-way street, must operate on a give-and-take basis. It can only do this if it is given the recognition it deserves at national level by being allocated appropriate institutional capacities and adequate funding. Given the magnitude of the world's freshwater problems, particularly in the developing countries, it would be a fatal mistake with global consequences to lose sight of the dual need for solidarity and reciprocity in this domain.

This brings me to an issue that, in accordance with the recommendation of your Bureau, will certainly be discussed in depth in the coming days. This is the question of the governing mechanism of IHP which may need to be re-examined after some twenty years of functioning in its present form. You may recall that it was more than four years ago when you started discussions in this very room on the status of IHP. The thinking process was continued during your last session when the preliminary report of the IHP External Evaluation Committee was discussed. While the Evaluation Committee came up with an entirely positive view of the governance of IHP, it noted that not all Member States are involved in steering the Programme although this would be highly desirable. It was also noted that, due to the Council's present structure, the IHP National Committees of developing countries have limited opportunities to contribute to the formulation and implementation of IHP projects.

Mr. Chairperson, I do not wish to enter into this discussion but I wish you to know that I am absolutely ready to support the new and imaginative ways you can find to be more flexible, more ready to react to the different problems to bring about better sharing by Member States at the global level in this very important matter. What I mean is that UNESCO will put no obstacle in the way of the implementation of the formula you decide is the best one in this context.

Compared with the early days of IHD and the follow-up IHP phases, IHP-V represents a further significant shift towards a more interdisciplinary programme. This is a necessary evolution if the Programme is to continue to be relevant to the type of science needed for solving the water problems of today and particularly those of the future. I would assume that as hydrologists you see nothing wrong in this, if one considers hydrology to be - in its broad sense - the "science that deals with waters above and below the land surfaces of the Earth, their occurrence, circulation and distribution, both in time and space, their biological, chemical and physical properties, their reaction to the environment, including their relation to living beings". It would, for example, be difficult today to exclude from the compass of hydrology the social implications of water resources development and management. I believe it to be wholly appropriate that the IHP-V plan should respond to these issues by considering the interactions between water, ecology and society through integrated water resources management for sustainable development in a vulnerable environment.

This interdisciplinarity approach is well illustrated by the initiative on small island hydrology in the South Pacific, which provides imput to the Coastal Zones and Small Islands (CSI) project recently launched as a collaborative venture within UNESCO's science programmes. Three field projects investigating the hydrological implications of tropical deforestation, groundwater recharge and groundwater contaminant transport have already commenced. Right from the start these IHP studies - being undertaken in co-operation with local NGOs - have incorporated most of the interdisciplinary issues, including various socio-cultural aspects connected with the community management of water resources. At the same time, there is an emphasis on the practical application of the results both to guide technical personnel and to educate the community.

You said just now, Mr Chairperson, that we should anticipate the future. It is my strong wish that you should be the kind of body that has the scientific capacity and the political vision to anticipate in one of the most important domains for our common future. And this implies daring. I like to repeat that risk without knowledge is dangerous but knowledge without risk is useless. I therefore hope that you will have both the knowledge and the capacity to dare, so as to enable this programme and this Council to overcome the routine and the obstacles that so often stand in the way of those new procedures and forms of action that can help us in moving from a culture of war, of force, to a culture of peace. We now have a fantastic transition to make - a transition from the logic of force to the force of reason, a transition from imposition to sharing. This is why I think that the sharing of water is one of the most important efforts we should make at the dawn of a new century. UNESCO has at its mission to promote a culture of solidarity and dialogue. I am very proud that this Council is an important part of UNESCO's mission of building peace every day, of furthering the transition - which I would very much like to coincide with the end of the century - from a culture of war to a culture of peace.

And I thank you very much for your dedication to the cause of IHP and UNESCO, and I wish you every success in your debates and decisions.