１１５：ダボス会議での水問題の取り組み

ダボス会議に対する小生の認識が甘く、本会議での水問題への取り組みが伝わってこないなどと失礼な言い方をしてしまった。

先日、東大の沖教授のブログで、ダボス会議で水問題に対する提言があったことを知り早速報告書を見てみた。

World Economic Forum Water Initiative

GWPのパトロンである、カナダ人のMs. Margaret Catley-Carlsonが中心的にまとめたようだ。前回の議論をベースにしている。

２０年後までの１２の経済的そして地政学的な水問題を示し、３つのテーマと１２の行動計画を提言している（下記参照）まあIWRMと同じような内容だがIWRMは一切使用されていない。integratedという言い方はあるが、あえてintegrated water reosurces managementはない。意識してなのか？！品格ですね。

1. Water scarcity will increase dramatically in many
parts of the world. This will have significant social
and economic repercussions. Global grain harvests
will be threatened, more countries will rely on food
imports and the livelihoods of many people will be
threatened. This is on top of the billion or so people
who do not have access to improved water supply
today.

2. Meanwhile, global demand for food, especially meat,
will rise sharply, placing more pressure on water for
agriculture. Unless we change how we manage
agricultural water, we will not be able to provide the
food for tomorrow’s consumer demands.

3. At the same time, and compounding the problem,
fast-growing economies, especially in the Middle
East and Asia, will likely allocate less water to
agriculture over the next two decades and more to
the growing demands of their urban, energy and
industrial sectors.

4. Domestic reform of water for agriculture is therefore
urgently required in many water-stressed countries,
in order to produce “more crops with fewer drops”.
But there is currently little political interest in this.

5. The over-extraction of freshwater is also
compromising the environment severely in many
parts of the world. Climate change adds to the
urgency; its impacts play out most prominently in
water resources.

6. Engaging in global trade can also help countries to
manage water security issues, but the global trade
system for agriculture is outdated and in urgent need
of reform.

7. With agriculture remaining a thinly-traded good,
gains from trading so-called “virtual” water are
limited. Changes in the geopolitical landscape will
start to occur, as water-scarce countries seek their
own water solutions.

8. Simultaneously, the US and EU will also seek to
improve energy security. Energy policy decisions
have strong connections to water, climate and food
security policy, which can spin negatively or
positively. Energy policy must take into account
these interlinkages. Domestic energy security should
be seen as a decision to switch from relying on
foreign oil to relying on domestic water.

9. Improving water infrastructure for cities, energy and
industry will become urgent across all economies,
especially in Asia. Poor quality and inefficient water
supply services will be seen as a brake on economic
growth. Private finance will be required, as public
funds will not be able to fill the water investment gap.
Governments that introduce reforms in water supply
management will attract private finance. This does
not mean taking water supply out of public
ownership, but undertaking reforms to ensure private
investor risks are reduced and rates of return
become more desirable. International aid for water
will be increasingly used to access credit for private
investments into public infrastructure on the back of
these reforms.

10. The raw economics of water are both compelling
and challenging: water security, economic
development and GDP are interlinked. Business and
capital will be attracted to those economies in waterscarce
regions with sound water management. New
technologies, new markets and new financing ideas
will be attracted to solving the water challenge.
Water will become a mainstream theme for investors.
Governments in water-scarce regions that undertake
water reforms will strengthen and position their
economies well. Global financial regulators will have
to develop clear rules to manage the inevitable
appearance of innovative water funds.

11. The overall conclusion is clear: governments in
water-scarce regions will be in a weaker position if
they choose not to engage in water management
reforms, whether in their agricultural, energy and
municipal sectors, or through multi-country
discussions on trans-boundary issues, international
trade and investment flows. The global water
forecast for the next two decades, if no reform
actions are taken, is chilling; water scarcity will have
a profound effect on global and regional systems,
whether from an economic growth, human security,
environmental or geopolitical stability perspective.

12. The current economic downturn offers an
opportunity to start addressing the emerging water
crisis. Management of future water needs stands out
as an urgent, tangible and fully resolvable issue,
which can only be improved by a multistakeholder
effort led by government. Governments can bring
business and civil society together to help address a
commonly (and often locally) felt challenge. While
some trade-offs will be inevitable, all can benefit from
improvements in how water is managed. Now, when
a suite of reforms is required to fix systemic
problems in the economic system, is the perfect time
to start the water reform dialogue.

Raise Awareness

1. We will finalize the draft of this forecast and publish it
worldwide as a book/multimedia product. We invite
interested parties from all parts of the Davos
community to contribute to this publication.

2. We will work with the external relations departments
of our Water Initiative Project Board and our resource
Partner, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, to
formulate an awareness-raising campaign for the
forecast publication and its core messages. We invite
interested media companies who form part of the
Davos community to help us.

3. We will seek to have the short film that accompanies
this forecast, made by Circle of Blue, disseminated
as widely as possible. A webpage linked to the
World Economic Forum website will enable the film
and the forecast to be downloaded free of charge.
Project Board members of the Water Initiative and
organizations that have contributed to the forecast
will also be asked to place the files on their websites.

4. We will use this forecast to raise awareness among
business and government leaders involved in the
energy sector in particular. We welcome the
associated report on water that CERA has produced
for the World Economic Forum Energy Community
for the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting
2009, and look forward to working closely with them
on this issue.

Improve Management

5. We will work with our Water Initiative Project Board,
members of the Global Agenda Council on Water
Security and others to provide a global and regional
discussion platform that helps the development of
better analytics for water. A private session at the
Annual Meeting 2009 will help to catalyse this
process. We invite interested members of the Davos
community to join this process.

6. We will support our regional partners in the Middle
East to develop a water policy benchmarking tool to
enable a comparison of the effectiveness of
government water reform activities in the region.

7. We will support our regional partners in Southern
Africa to develop public-private water management
plans that link to the SADC/African Union
commitment to development of a number of growth
corridors in the region.

8. We will invite our Water Initiative Project Board,
members of the Global Agenda Council on Water
Security and other organizations and initiatives such
as the CEO Water Mandate, the World Business
Council for Sustainable Development, the Global
Water Footprint Network, the Carbon Disclosure
Project, the Columbia University Water Centre, Yale
University inter alia to help us create an international
public-private workshop on unifying water data
collection, management and disclosure approaches
for business. We will support this as a side event at
the Stockholm World Week, August 2009, or in
Dalian, People’s Republic of China, September 2009
as part of the World Economic Forum Annual
Meeting of New Champions.

Promote Investment and Reform

9. We will work with our Water Initiative Project Board,
members of the Global Agenda Council on Water
Security and regional stakeholders of the water
initiative from the Middle East, Southern Africa and
India, to launch three regional multistakeholder
conclaves. These high level roundtables will use this
forecast document to help catalyse regional
discussions on reform to the water sector. Publicprivate
discussions during 2008 in each region
identified both the desire for these conclaves and a
core group of participants. The conclaves will each
convene twice during 2009, once as part of a World
Economic Forum regional event, and at one other
time during the year, perhaps linked to a relevant
regional water event. Participants will be eligible to
use the WELCOM platform of the World Economic
Forum to help sustain their discussions via a Wiki,
interactive electronic chat rooms and
videoconference facilities. We invite interested
regional leaders who form part of the relevant Davos
community to join these conclaves.

10. We will use the convening power of the World
Economic Forum to help our Water Initiative Project
Board and our members of the Global Agenda
Council on Water Security have bilateral discussions
about the importance of water reform with relevant
ministers, other officials and civil society leaders from
key water-stressed regions of the world. These
meetings will link to Forum regional events
throughout the year.

11. We will use the convening power of the World
Economic Forum to stage an Informal Gathering of
Asian Water Leaders (inspired by the Forum’s IGWEL
sessions). The session will discuss, at the highest
political level, the need for water reform across Asia,
using this forecast document as a starting point. The
session will take place in Dalian, People’s Republic of
China, in September as part of the World Economic
Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions
2009.

12. We will work with our Water Initiative Project Board,
members of the Global Agenda Council on Water
Security and partners from international development
agencies to launch a global alliance on public-private
partnerships in water. Evidence from a World
Economic Forum-supported pilot initiative in India
and South Africa shows that over US$ 20 million can
be leveraged for water projects from a grant 100
times as small, when a neutral discussion platform is
created that enables key stakeholders from
business, government, banks, the aid industry, civil
society and foundations to jointly design, finance and
execute a mutually-acceptable project pipeline. This
work has been short-listed for a Harvard University
Prize. The aim is now to scale up the platform: a
private session at the Annual Meeting 2009 will
launch this activity. We invite interested members of
the Davos community to join us and our partners in
this process.
We believe this set of activities offers a tangible and
practical response to the many questions raised by the
forecast document, especially in the context of the
structural economic problems the world economy
currently faces. Please contact water@weforum.org for
more information.
Given the scope and breadth of the activities proposed,
we also welcome inquiries from members of the Davos
community (Industry Partner, governmental organizations
or NGOs) interested in providing staff to help the Forum’s
Water Initiative execute these tasks over the coming year.

こういった活動を知らなかった無知はあるが、経済的な問題として捉えられているのは興味深い。残念ながら議論には多くの人がかかわっているが日本人は一人も参加していない。仲間内の国際会議だけでなく、こうした世界的に影響力のある経済会議に日本の水専門家も発言すべきではないだろうか。