L Hendricks: Launch of framework on water for growth and
development

2 March 2009

Members and officials of our public entities
Councillors and officials of municipalities
Partners from the private sector
Programme Director
Honoured guests
Ladies and gentlemen

Introduction

It is an honour to address you today on this important occasion as we mark
the start of National Water Week and the launch of the framework on water for
growth and development.

The National Water Week is celebrated annually during the month of March and
is composed of a series of events that promote water conservation whilst
celebrating our successes with regards to securing the human rights of all
citizens to access clean water. The key goal of the National Water Week is to
raise the profile of water as a key resource for socio-economic development
hence the need to educate people on the importance of protecting and conserving
this limited resource.

It is important to always remind all South Africans, that our country is
classified amongst the driest countries by world standard hence the importance
of ensuring that the little water that we have is protected from pollution and
conserved to achieve efficient use. This requires careful management of this
valuable resource so that we are able to extend basic water services to every
citizen whilst meeting the needs of economic growth without threatening the
environmental integrity of our water resources. Government is constantly
balancing the escalating and competing demands on the country's limited water
resources, ever mindful of the fact that water for social development, economic
growth and environmental sustainability are equally important for the success
and prosperity of this country.

I would also like to take this opportunity to launch the framework on water
for growth and development. This is an important framework that maps our course
of action in ensuring that our country secures enough water to support its
growth trajectory both social and economic. Of course we need to ensure that
whatever we implement adheres to sustainable environmental practices.

Achievements

It is important for us to take a moment to reflect on the road we have
travelled and appreciate what we have achieved over the past fifteen years.
When the first democratic government took over in 1994, it was confronted with
massive infrastructure backlogs, fragmented institutional arrangements,
outdated policies and repressive legislation. It took a lot of time and
financial investment to correct these anomalies, and there are still remnants
of our divided past that still haunt us today and will still take us some time
to undo.

We take pride in our successes to date, which include the development of
outstanding policy and legislation. Inevitably, the initial years of our
programmes focused on servicing un-served areas of our country and addressing
the needs of the poor, especially those residing in the former homelands, which
led to massive infrastructure programmes to address the backlogs that resulted
from decades of separate development and neglect.

The fact that our country still faces backlogs in some localities often
distracts us from taking pride in our successes since 1994. We are recognised
internationally for achieving what seemed impossible in terms of reducing
historic backlogs today; millions of our people have access to clean water and
safe sanitation facilities. South Africa’s policies and legislation are also
acclaimed world wide for being progressive, pro-poor and adhering to universal
human rights. To achieve this, we had to go through very difficult changes in
an attempt find the suitable policies and institutional mechanisms while
ensuring a fair balance between our responsibility to provide services and the
need to subject ourselves to constant review and repositioning.

Over the past ten years, local government has been gradually introduced as
the centre of community level service delivery, including water services, and
therefore our focus shifted to local government support to ensure that
municipalities were able to assume this responsibility effectively.

Responding to Government's Programme of Action

In his State of the Nation Address, the President reminded us of
government’s responsibility to support economic development in the country by
removing critical bottlenecks such as the lack of adequate infrastructure, the
unavailability of appropriate skills and lack of regulation. These are all
relevant to the water sector, and water remains as a key enabler for
socio-economic growth, especially in a country such as ours.

The President also reminded us that access to basic services and meeting the
millennium development goals, remains at the top of the agenda of government’s
programme of action. This means that we need to accelerate efforts to support
local government's municipal infrastructure development programme. This we must
do without neglecting our responsibilities in other areas such as asset
management, water quality and water conservation and demand management. Again,
whilst we are constitutionally obliged to support local government, we must
equally ensure that municipalities discharge their functions within our
regulatory framework.

Whilst South Africa's economy has been and is growing in new directions, and
the country faces new challenges as its democracy matures, the development
agenda is broadening to address new priorities. I strongly believe that all of
us agree that securing our water needs is an important measure towards
addressing these priorities. I equally believe that all of us irrespective of
political affiliation agree that poverty eradication, access to health services
and job creation are amongst the key development priorities of our nation.

For our programmes to be relevant, they need to address these priorities
within the ambit of government's programme of action, and with a direct
response to guiding economic and development strategies such as Accelerated and
Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsGISA) and the Anti-Poverty
Strategy. Most importantly, we need to ensure that decisions on key government
programmes are informed by the status of water availability, balanced
allocation and the need for improved water use efficiency.

New challenges

Our raw and drinking water quality is an area of concern for my department,
and media reports have elevated this to a so-called "water crisis". We are
experiencing unprecedented water pollution due to increased industrial activity
and unplanned settlements, infrastructure failures due to the ageing of such
infrastructure, and water shortages in certain regions. The poor quality of
water influence costs in foregone exports of crops, water borne disease, death
and lost productivity (especially in a context of HIV and AIDS), loss of
aquatic biodiversity, impacts on water based tourism and recreation, and
increasing water treatment costs for municipalities and industry. The two most
significant sources of raw water pollution are poorly managed waste water
treatment works (WWTW) and acid mine drainage (current and abandoned
mines).

Ladies and gentlemen, growth in certain sectors of the economy such as
mining, coupled with a growing population has led to increased demand for water
finite resource. Poor management and limited regulation have led to the illegal
water use, such as illegal abstraction of water and increasing incidents of
water pollution in a number of our catchments. We are also aware that climate
change is a reality, and as a result provinces are experiencing increased
variability in rainfall.

The current state of affairs can have a devastating impact on our society,
especially our vulnerable and poor citizens if it is not managed properly.
Without sufficient water, health and food security are compromised. Without
sufficient water, industrial growth is constrained.

We need to act, and act decisively. If we do not act now, it is projected
that our major metropolitan centres will not be able to cope with increasing
industrial and household water needs in the next ten years, and Gauteng may run
out of water even earlier by 2013.

This state of affairs reminds us of an English proverb that says "We never
know the worth of water 'til the well is dry'.

Our biggest challenge is maintaining a fair balance when allocating our
limited water resources amongst the competing ecological, economic and social
demands. When doing so, we need to bear in mind that these competing sectors do
not operate in mutually exclusive environments and therefore we need to ensure
that our actions produce positive effects throughout the cycle. The cost of
doing business has been cited by the private sector as a significant constraint
to economic growth. And as a nation, we have to take responsibility for our
actions.

Water for Growth and Development: A Framework for Action

Ladies and gentlemen securing adequate and safe drinking water to address
the growing demands of the social and economic sectors of our country is a
critical challenge facing our government. As Minister of Water Affairs and
Forestry I must however assure you that we are equal to the task.

Program director, the department in consultation with the water sector
partners has worked tirelessly to come up with a holistic approach to address
our daunting challenges so as to avert the so-called water crisis. I am pleased
to present the Water for Growth and Development Framework, which reflects our
commitment to water security for our people, the economy and the environment
for now and into the future. This is a framework for action, developed by the
sector and led by government. The key thrust of which is to ensure that
sufficient supply of water is secured to support the country’s economic growth
targets as well as ensuring that every person in South Africa has access to
safe drinking water.

This framework is the result of two years’ worth of consultations with key
players in the water sector and at this moment I need to pause and thank all
our partners for the valuable input leading to its development. In January
2009, Cabinet gave us approval to engage in an extensive consultation process
with all stakeholders involved in the water sector. The process of developing
the framework has forced the government to confront some hard truth about
challenges in the sector. It has also provided a platform for government to
engage with the sector partners in seeking appropriate long term solutions to
respond to these challenges.

The dynamics of water for growth and development and poverty alleviation are
very complex, and are dependent on many physical, cultural, political and
economic circumstances. There is however a consensus that water resources
development and management are an essential foundation on which to build and
generate wealth, mitigate risk, and alleviate poverty.

This framework makes a number of recommendations that will allow SA to
respond to the challenges identified. These include the following:
* placing water at the heart of all development planning decisions
* exploring but not exploiting all available sources of raw water to supplement
the limited resources we currently depend on
* increasing efforts of influencing changes in attitudes and behaviour of all
our citizens towards water
* striking a balance between the need to provide water and the need to manage
demand
* prioritising access by all citizens to clean water
* building relevant and capable water institutions to ensure that different
responsibilities are effectively executed
* strengthening of our regulatory regime

My Director General will elaborate more on these points in her presentation
later today.

To achieve this, we will require joint efforts from all sectors in
government, industry and civil society to support integrated planning,
collaboration, investment and implementation.

Water as a shared responsibility

Ladies and gentlemen

We must make water everybody's business. I strongly believe that we need to
strengthen multi stakeholder dialogues on the security and the utilisation of
our water to achieve balanced and sustainable socio-economic development. It is
important to establish strong cooperation within government, within the broader
water sector, and between government, the private and civil sectors. There are
a number of areas for which action will be required where such cooperation will
be absolutely necessary. These are:
* ensuring safe drinking water and sanitation for all
* ensuring increased water use efficiency especially in agriculture
* increasing protection of water resources or rivers, springs, dams, and
groundwater
* responding to the impact of climate change.

Practical actions will include:
* increased research on improved appropriate technology to deal with various
challenges water quality, storage, access, recycling
* financing of the various initiatives to improve water availability and
quality
* skills development and knowledge management
* institutional development and support

Closing remarks

Programme director, ladies and gentlemen, we fully understand that there is
no single solution to remedy the growing water stress and rainfall,
unreliability and that other factors such as climate change will make the
situation worse. The Water for Growth and Development Framework addresses these
key issues. It is a framework that maps a course of action to ensure that water
fully claims its central role as a cross sectoral input that supports social
development, economic growth and ecological sustainability.

We will continue to engage the various sectors to fine tune our plans and
get the necessary commitment on the framework. This framework should be owned
by all of us as a shared commitment to act collectively towards securing our
water needs.

The department has partnered with other water sector partners to stage
events throughout this week. I would like to urge all sector partners to assist
government during the National Water Week to communicate strong messages about
the need to conserve water.

Thank you.

Issued by: Department of Water Affairs and Forestry
2 March 2009