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CLEAN water may be in short supply, but there is no dearth of ways to get around it.
That was the message sent out at the World Cities Summit by an international panel of eight officials.
They recommended a gamut of strategies - everything from state- of-the-art desalination technologies to cheap water-saving campaigns.
Speakers underlined the need for countries to share knowledge and expertise, and agreed that no one should be left out of the loop - especially women who, in developing countries, often shoulder the task of fetching and carrying water from collection points back to their homes.
The experts included former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who is president of the Asia-Pacific Water Forum, a regional grouping of officials, academics and civil-society workers.
Also on the panel were Singapore's Dr Tony Tan, chairman of the National Research Foundation, and Saudi Arabia's Mr Fehied Al-shareef, who heads the government-owned firm that produces and distributes most of the Gulf state's potable or drinking water.
They spoke at a 90-minute forum on good governance and sustainable cities, chaired by Ambassador-at-large Tommy Koh, who warned that the breakneck speed at which urbanisation was taking place could turn out to be a 'nightmare' if cities and resources are not designed and managed well.
Among the key considerations he singled out: access to safe drinking water and sanitation.
Currently, 700 million people in Asia lack access to safe water, and about two billion lack basic sanitation facilities.
Mr Mori's Asia-Pacific Forum, which organised the region's first Water Summit in Japan in December last year, has vowed to halve these numbers by 2015, and to give all Asians access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2025.
Dr Tan spoke of his foundation's goal of establishing Singapore as a 'global water hub' by 2050, leveraging on technologies it has developed to desalinate sea water and recycle used water.
Such technologies have brought down the cost of a cubic metre of reclaimed used water from 80 US cents (S$1.10) to 20 US cents over a decade; and desalinated water from US$1.50 to 50 US cents, he said.
Sharing how Saudi Arabia has tackled water scarcity, Mr Al-shareef said initiatives to promote household water conservation and stem leakages in water networks have helped save three million cubic metres of water a day.
This has saved households half of their daily water consumption, said the governor of the Saline Water Conversion Corporation.
'Countries try to meet the high demand of water by increasingly building more plants and finding more sources, but never think seriously about tackling demand itself through cheap methods and quick solutions,' he argued.
And whether it is supply or demand, water-policy experts must remember to put people first, especially poor women 'who bear the brunt of poor water services', said South Africa's Water Affairs and Forestry Minister, Ms Lindiwe Benedicta Hendricks.
She noted that in developing countries, it is women rather than men who queue for water at collection points and use water in cooking and caring for the family.
'I am from Africa but I could easily be speaking for China or India,' said Ms Hendricks, who urged officials to 'put women at the centre of water policies and their implementation on the ground'.
clare@sph.com.sg
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