Beyond the Decade: A Framework for Global Cooperation

The International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade (IDWSSD) was launched by the General Assembly of the United Nations in November 1980 with the goal “to provide all people with water of safe quality and adequate quantity and basic sanitary facilities by 1990”. The World Bank estimates that despite the efforts during the Decade less than 50 percent of developing country populations have access to adequate water supplies and only 20 percent to adequate sanitation facilities.

Major factors for the situation are the continuing population explosion and the economic stagnation of developing countries. Qualitative breakthroughs have been made however, through (i) improved coordination for sector inputs at the global and country levels, (ii) systematic formulation of country strategies, (iii) rationalization of the management of the sector, and most significantly through (iv) community involvement and (v) the adoption of low-cost sustainable and replicable technologies. The UNDP/World Bank Programme and the UNDP/WHO Decade Programmes have played a catalytic role in developing activities in these five areas.

To maintain Decade momentum beyond 1990 and to accelerate the provision of water supply and sanitation services to all, with emphasis on the unserved rural and peri-urban poor, by using a coordinated programme “Decade” approach, a Framework for Global Cooperation has been established. A series of meetings of a Collaborative Council of External Support Agencies (ESAs) is involved, leading to a global consultation in India in 1990 for all developing countries to define and achieve consensus on a water and sanitation sector strategy for “Beyond the Decade”.