José Ángel Gurría is leading the Task Force on Financing Water for All, for the 4th World Water Forum, since he formerly participated in drafting the Camdessus Report as a member of the Consulting Council of Water and Sanitation for the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan. Gurría will assume as General Director of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) next June.

What is the Gurría Task Force?
It is the direct result of the effort by the Financing Water For All (FWA) World Panel, led by the ex Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Michel Camdessus, during the previous World Water Forum in Japan. We cannot explain the current panel without the previous work undertaken by Michel’s team.

What will be the difference between the Camdessus Report and the one that will emerge from the 4th Forum?
The focus. The Camdessus Report was widely focused due to it’s diagnostic nature. Also, that report explicitly decided to exclude agriculture, an activity that occupies between 70 and 80% of water resources, depending on each country, because it is a very complex issue.

The current report will be more specific. It will concentrate on systems for financing water at the local (sub-national) level: state, provincial, regional or municipal, depending on the nomenclature used in each country.

Water is a very local issue, but very important in terms of economic, political and power implications. That is why the panel will focus on local (or sub-national) financing, in accordance with the 4th Forum thesis “local actions for a global challenge”.

How will you put this local focus in practice?
Documenting cases. In order to do this, we are elaborating specialized reports. One will be on agriculture, a subject that —as I mentioned— was deliberately not included in the panel of the past Forum, because it was deemed too complex and wide-reaching, and required too many additional participants in order to analyze it. The previous panel decided to place the emphasis on the subject of drinking water and sanitation. Now, we have decided to put the emphasis on agriculture. The group that is preparing the report has had three meetings: in Hyderabad, India and in Pretoria, South Africa (in October), and in Alexandria, Egypt (in November).

On the other hand, it is preparing a report on financing local water initiatives. It will be conformed by case studies. We’ve already had a meeting in Marseille, at the WWC, and there will be another one before the Forum, probably in Europe or in Mexico, where we’ll have to finalize the preparation of the subject. The contributions are cases that come from the WWC, the GWP, the IDB, the Asian Development Bank, the Development Bank of Africa, the World Bank, the IFC and Central Europe.

Our idea is to present an array of examples from which we can extract conclusions, for both problem cases and successful ones.

At a certain point, the Camdessus Report sustained harsh criticism. What’s your opinion in this regard?
I’ve asked Camdessus to be present when we release the current conclusions of his work. What we are doing, however, does not compete with the previous report: it is complementary.

In Kyoto, Camdessus was given only five minutes to explain his conclusions, after two years work. At the third minute, however, several groups protested and did not allow him to continue.

The issue was discussed again at the G8 Summit in Evian. The leaders adopted several suggestions proposed by the panel like, for example, the creation of a World Bank fund. Unfortunately, the main issue discussed at that G8 meeting was security, due to the conflict in the Mid-East, and the challenges of financing water were placed in a secondary spot on the world agenda. However, the issue can be reconsidered if and when there is political will among the world leaders.

I would like Mr. Camdessus to make the formal presentation of the current panel’s conclusions since, because of the circumstances at the time, he was not allowed to make justice of the quality, extension and profundity of his report.

The truth, however, seems to be that the issue of financing water continues in stagnation.
We must remember that water is paid in three ways only. Two of them are generalized: consumers and contributors. But there is a third way: grants and donations from developed countries to others in extreme poverty.

However, we have been unable to capture the imagination of the most important industrialized countries, in order for them to devote a larger quantity of resources. If the issue of water was to be presented in a more definitive and conclusive manner, we could probably achieve great advances in fighting poverty, in equal opportunities, in fighting disease, and in increasing opportunities for the poorest nations.

If the benefits of financing water are so evident, why haven’t we been able to convince the world leaders?
We have probably not been good political communicators. At Evian, French President, Jacques Chirac was ready to discuss the subject and devote time to its discussion, but the Iraq issue took over and created tension among the participants. They devoted most of their time discussing security, and water was relegated.

The water issue was present, as you can read in the final communiqué of the G8 at Evian, but there was no follow-up. But when central issues are proposed at the G8 summits —and if they obtain enough attention and political will— action results.

How can the 4th Forum contribute to improving the communication of the water issue?
The Forum is our great opportunity to make a call to action to our world leaders. It’s our chance to say: “We have a problem that has great political, social and economic implications”.

Likewise, we will try to create opportunities for communication at the OECD, through our Development Aid Committee (DAC), in order to concentrate our ammunition on this issue.

But the Forum has to make itself relevant to the necessary spokespeople, and make sure they are physically present. At Kyoto we couldn’t do a lot of work because of the invasion of Iraq, and there was a great deal of tension.

Back again to the Financing Panel, will you consider focusing on the aspect of demand?
The supply and demand issue is useful, but only for analytical purposes and not to go to the extreme of separating them.

I believe that the problem is that, naturally, the issue is concentrated on the supply side, because we are dealing with major institutions with a social and a political responsibility that is more evident as a product to satisfy needs. Since demand is pulverized, it’s harder for stakeholders to unite in a single voice. But we need to work on both aspects.

We need to raise the issue of water to the level of the politicians, so that they can instruct their respective institutions to focus on and concentrate actions on solving water problems. We need them to deal with proposals and solutions and to make advances, even if they are unable to solve the whole issue.

But don’t we have to work on capacity development in order to attract financing?
The problem of financing water starts at home. We have to recognize that water is a valuable asset and that it has a cost, and not only a value. Typically, the cost of water is below its value. If we continue considering water as an almost free public good, we will accelerate its wrongful use, its wrongful disposition, and its abuse, which will cause humanity an irreparable damage.

But, "as it happens in many other aspects, the solution of the problem lies at home. We need people to be conscious of the value and the cost of water, and the consequences of not having access to it.

We need people to pay for water, taking into consideration the asymmetries and the development levels of each country. Then enter the tax institutions, to find a way to ask people to pay for the equivalent operation, maintenance, investment of water and sanitation infrastructure. In some cases, it might be necessary to introduce fiscal incentives for a project to function, but above all we have to guarantee access to water and sanitation: that is our most important goal.

The rest has to do with finding ways to shorten the gap between supply and demand.

Challenge possible achieved by treating the issue like a business, which requires a regulatory framework. But some will not visualize the issue as a business and therefore nothing can be done in that sense. I believe people know what’s best for them, but we have to do a lot of explaining.

In the end, these are all instruments for a basic purpose, that cannot be achieved if there is no conscience of the issue, and if there is no political will to solve it, because telling people that they have to pay for the water they consume is not exactly a popular issue.

And since investing in water is expense, long-term and doesn’t stand out, that’s probably why politicians don’t like it.
Yes, but they have to understand that the lack of water is a politically explosive issue.

Task Force on Financing Water for All
The Gurría Task Force on Financing Water for All held a meeting in Marseille, France. The details of the reunion can be consulted at the World Water Council website: www.worldwatercouncil.org.

Several NGO’s, local authorities, IFM’s (International Financial Markets), regional development banks and specialists from the world water community attended the meeting, according to the following list. It was agreed that the Task Force will concentrate on analyzing the progress on the subject since the publication of the Camdessus report, in regard to the role that local authorities can play in this issue, as well as in the subject of financing water for agriculture. Also, it was agreed that the Task Force will face the subject of financing based on a case-study methodology.

The Task Force will meet again in Paris, France, on February 2 and 3, before the 4th World Water Forum takes place.

Members of the Gurria Task Force
Conveners:
Margaret Catley-Carlson, Global Water Partnership
Cesar Herrera Toledo, 4th World Water Forum
Loïc Fauchon, President of the World Water Forum

Chair:
José Ángel Gurría, Former Mexican Minister of Finance

Development Banks:
Declan Duff, Vice President, Operations, International Finance Corporation

Omar Kabbaj, Former President of the African Development Bank
Antonio Vives, Sr., Deputy Manager of the Inter-American Development Bank
Haruhiko Kuroda, President of Asian Development Bank, represented by Geert van der Linden and Arjun Thapan
Ahmad Mohamed Ali Al Madani, President of the Islamic Development Bank, represented by Dr. Amadou Boubacar Cisse, Vice President of Operations, and Karim Allaoui
Elizabeth Littlefield, CEO to the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), World Bank

Municipalities
MMC. M. Dooms, Representative of the Mayor of Pretoria (Tshwane), Co-President of UCLG, and Lourens J. Lotter, Manager of Water Distribution for the City of Tshwane
Myriam Constantin, Water and Sanitiation Representative of the Mayor of Paris, Co-President of UCLG

Further information: www.worldwatercouncil.org/index.php?id=1018.