Speech by the Prince of Orange, Chair of UNSGAB

Speech | 23-09-2008

Ladies and gentlemen,

Allow me to begin with a quote from President Clinton taken from the recent Clinton Global Initiative press release:

"Through our Annual Meeting, CGI members have made upwards of $30 billion in commitments to improve more than 200 million lives in over 150 countries, and I'm confident you will see our members redouble their efforts this year."

In order to achieve this noble goal of redoubling your efforts, as President Clinton promises, you must find the missing link. That missing piece of the puzzle, which, in itself, may not seem worth looking at, since all of us in this room all take it for granted. The missing element that we know is out there, which needs definition and which is quintessential to achieve success in all four of the incredible focus areas you have taken upon yourselves to champion in this year's CGI Annual Meeting: Education, Energy & Climate Change, Global Health and Poverty Alleviation.

That white spot on the map, that frustrating last piece of the puzzle, you just cannot seem to find, but suddenly reveals itself as essential to complete the whole picture is water and sanitation. Access to a sustainable source of acceptable quality drinking water and improved sanitation is the Millennium Development Goal target that has my undivided attention as chairman of the United Nations Secretary General's Advisory Board for Water and Sanitation. I applaud President Clinton for his bold move to invite me here tonight to speak on a topic that is not mentioned as a separate focus area, because he realizes, you cannot really achieve major improvements in education, climate change, health or poverty without factoring in water and sanitation: two vital elements of human health, dignity and development!

The need for fresh water, something we humans cannot live without for more than 3 or 4 days, and for which, unlike fossil fuels for instance, there is no alternative, is something most people can relate to. Most people also understand that more than 70% of this precious resource is used to grow our food, which we can not do without for more than 2 months. We understand this fact mostly thanks to media attention around the unacceptable food crisis the world is experiencing as we speak. We also all know we have to wash our hands before every meal; maybe we don't understand exactly why, but it was the way we were brought up by our parents so we did it… we just did it just like we did not speak in public about private hygiene and sanitation. It is just not done!

That shyness around sanitation issues, ladies and gentlemen, you share with at least 2.4 billion fellow citizens on this planet. They also do not talk about sanitation, in their case because they simple do not have it! 40% of the world's population live at permanent risk because they lack something that is so normal to us we are not even allowed to speak about it. We accept 7500 people die every day, 5 000 of whom are less than 5 years old, because we don't mention the subject.

Well, let me tell you, it is time to break through the taboo, to call a spade a spade or a toilet a toilet and start doing something about this unacceptable killer that does not take rocket science to conquer but demands the political will to commit the funds required. When the globe seemed limited to Europe and North America in the first half of the 19th century, global health was primarily achieved through nothing else but sanitation. The substantial decline in mortality rates did not come from medical wonders but from toilets, sewers and personal hygiene. If you focus on global health here at the Clinton Global Initiative and really want to make a quantum leap, you have the solution right there!

The same goes for education. First of all, how can you achieve universal education if half the class, usually the young girls, are absent since they are performing their primary family obligation; fetching water! And exacerbating these low attendance rates, the WHO estimates 272 million schooldays are missed annually due to water born or sanitation related diseases. If we don't get the young girls to school we do not only hinder their advancement, we also lose the opportunity to educate them on reproductive health and nutrition for a healthier following generation.

And if we did manage to give the young girls the education so desperately needed, many drop out at puberty because they lack a private sanitary facility. In some rural areas of Asia even more than 50% drop out for this easily avoidable reason.

I want to avoid a long discussion here on the merits of biofuels, but I do realize this room is filled with visionaries. Try to envision for yourself a world with 9 to 10 billion fellow human beings at the end of this century. With current agricultural technology we will not be able to feed them all, even at the present caloric usage which is bound to grow in fast developing economies with ever expanding middle classes like China and India. We first need a drastic new green revolution reducing say to half the water needed to produce food through biotechnology and seed improvements, before biofuels can become a sustainable long term alternative to fossil fuels. Let's give the next generations a real and informed choice, not the choice between one full tank of an SUV or one year of grain to feed a person in the developing world.

There are alternatives for energy that also happen to be water related. Especially for Africa where only 4% of the hydro-potential has been tapped into; 96% still awaits being used! And this is one of the most direct and critical links between energy and climate change. It is now generally acknowledged that the effects of climate change will be greatest in the water sector; sea level rise, melting of land and sea based ice masses, the melting of Siberian permafrost, the slowing down or dying out of ocean currents and dramatic changes in precipitation patterns causing droughts and floods in areas now already most challenged. So Integrated Water Resource Management must become a mainstream instrument to mitigate these influences while it is still possible!

Ladies and gentlemen,

I have just given you that missing piece of the puzzle. By thinking and looking out of the box you will see that the solution for extensive advancements in the 4 focus areas, Education, Energy & Climate Change, Global Health and Poverty Alleviation, lies in achieving Millennium Development Goal 7 target 3.

The good news is we are on track to achieve the drinking water target worldwide; sadly sanitation is still lagging far behind. However, you can make a difference. Now you have found this missing link, I am confident that you will know what to do with it and that you will use it to finalize the grand design. And then you will suddenly see that redoubling your efforts and commitments will result in more than twice the output in terms of health, dignity and development for those who really need it.

Let me finish by wishing you all successful meetings and deliberations during this year's Annual Meeting. It must be a relief to finally have found that piece of the puzzle. The missing link which confirms we cannot achieve an optimum result for our brothers and sisters in need, without realising that we have to work together and use every synergy available to us to really make a difference.