Thank you …

It is a distinct honor to be here today with you at this critical juncture in the planning and management of water resources in the Americas. Mr. Chairman, my message, on behalf of the General Secretariat of the OAS and the Member States, is straightforward.

We are involved in an on-going-process which will directly impact the ability of the countries of this hemisphere to:

comply with the mandates of both UNCED and the Summit of the Americas process, as well as the "Declaration of Panama", which is the output of the Third Inter-American Dialogue on Water Management,

contribute to the World Water Council water visioning exercise and UNEP’s Global International Waters Assessment (GIWA) processes, and

attract and manage investments for the water sector for the benefit of the countries of the Americas.

It goes without saying that success is our only option. As many of you will remember from Panama, the youth of this hemisphere have developed their declaration on water. I maintain that their desires must be taken into account as we go forward with this meeting and with the process of planning the use of our water resources.

Realizing the goal of a strategy for managing water in a sustainable manner at the Inter-American level is not an easy task, particular given increasing demands from all sectors. Yet its importance cannot be misjudged. Many feel that sufficient quantities of quality water is the critical and limiting factor for future investments, a necessary component of public health, and basic to the maintenance of aquatic ecosystems and agricultural productivity. Before I get to a few specifics as to how I think we should proceed, let me review the process to date.

Process/overheads:

One of the earliest actions relating to water management following the UNCED Summit, was the convening of the First Inter-American Dialogue on Water Management in October 1993.

The "Statement of Miami" called for the creation of the Inter-American Water Resources Network -- the IWRN -- to facilitate communication and cooperation among groups with a shared commitment to sound management of water resources in the Americas. The OAS was asked to serve as the technical secretariat for the IWRN. Governments were asked to officially appoint focal points to represent their views and policies in technical meetings sponsored by the IWRN and, to date, 27 countries have done so. At the same time, the IWRN sought to build its membership with international organizations, professional societies, universities, and representatives of the private sector. The Americas was the first region to take such a step and I believe that we remain the global pacesetters in this regard. IICA, is a member of the IWRN Advisory Council.

At the First Summit of the Americas held in Miami in October of 1994, the Heads of State approved a Plan of Action to catalyze partnerships and mechanisms to facilitate technical cooperation, capacity building, and public participation in environmental decision-making

As a result, the IWRN Advisory Council, Executive Committee and a related nonprofit Foundation were proposed – all of which were debated and approved at an Inter-American Technical Meeting on Water in July 1996.

Shortly after that, in September 1996, the Second Inter-American Dialogue on Water Management was convened in Buenos Aires. This meeting prepared inputs for the specialized Summit of the Americas on Sustainable Development. The Declaration of Buenos Aires called for a new commitment by governments, international financial institutions, and the public and private sectors to implement action plans in the water sector and gave particular attention to the importance of transboundary river basins and other shared bodies of water.

The Presidential Summit on Sustainable Development held in Santa Cruz, Bolivia in December 1996 was perhaps the most important regional meeting held to date in response to the outputs of UNCED. The Plan of Action included sixty-five Initiatives, twelve of which dealt with water management, providing us with a political decision for addressing issues confronting management of the water sector. By this time it was becoming clear that a consensus on water priorities was emerging.

Shortly after Santa Cruz, the OAS, in its secretariat role to the Summit, organized an Inter-Agency Task Force of major international agencies to coordinate follow-up actions to Bolivia and initiated a process for tracking the status of implementation of the Initiatives. Regular meetings are held with the seventeen organizational members of the IATF, which also includes IICA.

A report summarizing these efforts was subsequently presented by the OAS Secretary General at the Inter-American Council for Integral Development at its most recent meeting in March of last year, as well as to the Second Summit of the Americas which took place in Santiago in April 1998. The fact that mechanisms were established in support of a continuing and constructive dialogue is perhaps the most important outcome from Bolivia.

The work of the Task Force as well as that of the Inter-American Water Resources Network brought to the fore the need for regional dialogues. These were held in 1997 and 1998 and attended by the focal points and representatives of many of the agencies and organizations present at this meeting.

In December of last year, a high-level technical meeting reviewed the outputs of the three regional consultations. Once again, IICA was present. The final report, which is available on the tables outside, was the basic reference document for the Third Inter-American Dialogue. I urge you to pay particular importance to the recommendations in the summary tables as they include many concrete actions on the development and implementation of integrated water resource management policies in the Americas.

I also want to emphasize that a number of related meetings and institutions addressed water management issues in parallel to the events that I described above. Let me highlight IICA’s role in this process. Apart from IICA’s participation in both the IWRN and the IATF, the First Water Meeting held in Forteleza, Brasil in November 1997 produced a seven-point "Manifesto of the Water Meeting" which called on IICA to continue to discuss water issues, especially those impacting agriculture production. IICA has also recently completed a very important policy document outlining an institutional strategy for "Water and Soil Resources for Agriculture and Rural Development.

The World Water Council has created a Water Visioning Process, and UNESCO the Colloquium on Hydrology and Water. UNEP has launched the Global International Water Assessment process, and the GEF has increased its funding portfolio on shared water resources, as have the Andean Development Corporation, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the World Bank. UNEP has also developed proactive partnerships with regional bodies such as the one I represent as a means of fulfilling its catalytic role globally, something we look forward to doing in a closer fashion with IICA.

That brings us to the recently completed III Dialogue. The declaration was a particularly important statement as it identified new issues and opportunities to advance the management of water resources for all sectors. The results of this meeting have just been published.

We have already initiated planning for the IV Dialogue on Water Management that will be held in Brazil in May 2001. Once again, IICA will have a critical role.

So what’s required for us to continue with the dialogue and really develop a coordinated approach to the management of fresh and coastal waters at the hemispheric level? Let me be specific and not leave any doubt as to what I am suggesting.

First, I would urge you to take very seriously what has occurred to date – both in terms of mandates and outputs. This includes giving serious consideration to the outputs of the Santa Cruz Summit, as well as the document "Status and Proposed Actions to Continue the Implementation of the Initiatives on Water Resources and Coastal Areas of the Plan of Action for the Sustainable Development of the Americas." It represents a lot of work by the best water-minds in the hemisphere and should not be minimized in the outputs of the present gathering.

Second, I hope you will not loose the opportunity represented by this meeting to continue to analyze issues that are critical to improving water management for agriculture. Some of the most difficult challenges of implementing the initiatives approved in Santa Cruz occur at the interface between different sectors. Cross-sectoral issues are complex to resolve because they require coordinated actions of different branches of government. Dialogue at the interface has the effect of engaging higher authorities of government, which are needed to address problems or conflicts that cannot be resolved within the individual sectors. Equally important are biodiversity and agriculture, energy and agriculture, and the management of transportation corridors and agriculture. This is the arena where the sustainable development debate is heading and we should use it to our full advantage.

Third, I strongly urge IICA to accept the IWRN invitation to become a full partner in planning, organizing, and fund raising efforts for the IV Inter-American Dialogue on the Management of Water. To that end, we propose to include a session on water management for agriculture production with the aim that IV Dialogue be a forum for discussions exploring water and productive sectors.

Fourth, we invite IICA to join the OAS in strengthening the Inter-American Water Resources Network (IWRN). The demand for services from this network is evident throughout the conclusions of the three regional workshops and the Inter-American Technical Meeting on Water. Probably no single mechanism is cited more often as the tool for implementation of the recommendations that have been made by the many participants in this sequence of meetings on water. The IWRN is a relatively inexpensive mechanism for both sustained dialogue and technology transfer. It is both flexible to adapt to changing needs and highly cost effective.

And fifth, we must all work to break down institutional jealousies and unnecessary competition at all levels, resulting in a true collaborative effort and, above all, fostering the political will to actually implement what we have agreed to as a hemisphere. By the time the Fourth Inter-American Dialogue on Water Management is held in 2001, the first water vision will have been presented in the Hague and many additional water meetings in the hemisphere will have been held. If these regional meetings can be linked together and jointly planned to build on the work begun in The Summit on Sustainable Development and carried forth at that meeting, a powerful mechanism would be in place for advancing water resources management in the Americas. It will also send a very clear message to the development banks as to our priorities for investment.

We, in the Americas, are far ahead of other regions of the world in both understanding issues and setting priorities related to investments in integrated and sustainable management of water resources. The Americas has the opportunity to become a model for the Visioning process as we aim for The Hague in the year 2000 and Dialogue IV in the succeeding year. Integrated water management is the best chance we have to help drive the development process. We ought not miss the chance represented by this gathering to advance that goal.