GLOBAL WARMING
Hitching businesses to the green bandwagon
By Michael Richardson, For The Straits Times
AS GOVERNMENT negotiators from around the world try to agree on the outlines of a deal to reduce the impact of climate change, one of the biggest problems they must tackle is cutting the huge amounts of global warming emissions from the burning of coal to generate electricity and run heavy industries.
The officials, now meeting in Bali under United Nations auspices until Dec 14, face a daunting task. The world's three largest coal-burning countries - China, the United States and India - oppose mandatory emissions reductions, arguing that they would undermine economic growth.

In doing so, they foreclose the most radical but effective way to cut a heavily polluting energy source. However, an alternative path - developing low-emissions coal use - is a major opportunity and a major challenge for international cooperation. But it can be achieved only if Asian and Western governments and companies work more closely together for the common good.

Because coal is cheap and relatively abundant, it accounted for 25 per cent of the world's commercial energy supply last year, second only to oil. But due to its high carbon content, coal was also responsible for about 40 per cent of the carbon dioxide released from fossil fuels, despite supplying only 32 per cent of fossil fuel energy.

Carbon dioxide accounts for about 80 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions and is considered the monster of global warming.

World coal consumption reached a record level last year, with China, the US, the European Union and India the top four users. But power generators in America and Europe are now finding it more difficult to get regulatory approval to build new coal-fired plants, partly because of growing public concern about pollution and climate change.

MAKING IT WORTHWHILE
The IEA suggests that any new deal to curb global warming should include incentives for China, India and other rapidly emerging economies to use energy more efficiently and invest in cleaner power.
Meanwhile, China and India have embarked on major expansion of industrial coal use, saying it is essential for their economic growth, jobs and poverty alleviation, despite the costs to the environment and public health.

Last month, China's biggest coal-burning plant, a 4,000MW complex built at a cost of US$2.1 billion (S$3 billion), started supplying electricity to energy-hungry factories and cities along the country's eastern coast.

The official China Electricity Council said earlier this year that 90,000MW of coal- fired generating capacity - the equivalent output of 90 nuclear power stations - was added to the national grid last year alone. This staggering figure may well include some double-counting.

Moreover, as electricity supply catches up with demand in China and energy conservation measures take hold, the rate of power station construction will slow.

Even so, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned in its recent annual report that if unfettered growth in global energy demand continues, demand for coal is set to grow most rapidly, driven largely by power sector demand in China and India.

As a result, energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide would increase from 27 billion tonnes in 2005 to 42 billion tonnes in 2030 - a rise of 57 per cent.

China is expected to overtake the US by the end of this year to become the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, while India is projected to become the third-biggest source by around 2015.

The IEA suggests that any new deal to curb global warming should include incentives for China, India and other rapidly emerging economies to use energy more efficiently and invest in cleaner power.

The UN is not the best forum to work on the details of low-emissions coal technology. With almost 190 nations, it is too cumbersome. But any agreement related to climate change would need the UN's final seal of approval.

A better forum would be the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP). Launched barely two years ago, it encompasses the governments and corporate sectors of seven partner nations, including Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the US. The APP needs more resources and could be enlarged to include other major coal users and exporters such as Russia, Indonesia and South Africa. It could also draw on the coal expertise of the IEA and other bodies.

A key advantage of the APP is that it engages companies and governments. In the West, it is these coal and engineering businesses, rather than governments, that own the technology that enables modern coal plants to filter out nitrous oxide, a significant greenhouse gas, and other harmful emissions.

These same companies are the leaders in developing the next generation of coal-fired plants that will capture carbon dioxide for burial underground, although this may add substantially to the cost of electricity.

Last month, the Centre for Global Development in Washington, a non-partisan research institute, compiled an online database listing carbon dioxide emissions from 50,000 power plants around the world, with figures for the years 2000 and 2007, then forecasts for five to 10 years in the future, based on published plans.

The data base shows the US power sector is now the top emitter, spewing nearly 2.8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. China is close behind at 2.7 billion tonnes, with Russia at 661 million tonnes, India at 583 million tonnes and Japan at 400 million tonnes. Germany, Australia, South Africa, Britain and South Korea round out the top 10 carbon polluters.

A significant finding of this study is that senior executives of the 100 largest power companies worldwide are responsible for plants that emit 57 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions from this sector.

Bringing them into coal-related climate change negotiations could help to ensure the businesses they head move from being an important part of the problem to being an important part of the solution.

The writer is an energy and security specialist at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. This is a personal comment.

Sanitation in India

Dec 6, 2007
UPFRONT
Sanitation woes cry out for low-cost solutions
By P. Jayaram, India Correspondent

NEW DELHI - WHEN sanitation campaigner Bindeswar Pathak walked into Delhi's five-star Maurya Sheraton with a ragtag group of 38 in tow, the hotel's general manager pleaded with him to go elsewhere.
The manager knew Dr Pathak, a high-caste brahmin, well. The problem was with his companions, who belonged to India's community of nightsoil carriers who remove sewage from toilets manually and are considered the lowest of the low in the Hindu caste ladder.

'I told him I will have lunch with them and assured him I'll pay,' Dr Pathak, 65, told The Straits Times, recalling the incident three years ago.

Despite a ban in 1993, nightsoil carrying continues. There are still an estimated half a million people who clean toilets without sewerage manually.

And they are much needed if shunned by society.

A staggering 73 per cent of the Indian population, or about 750 million people, either relieve themselves in the open or use unhygienic, dry bucket latrines.
'It is like the entire population of Europe sitting on their haunches from the Elbe in the east to the Pyrennes in the west,' said Dr Pathak, who heads the Sulabh Sanitation and Social Reform Movement, a Delhi-based toilet advocacy charity.

India is not alone in its lack of proper sanitation.

Some 2.6 billion people - or a third of the world's population and most in developing countries - have no access to proper toilets.

Half of them live in India and China, a stark reminder of the challenges facing the world's two most populous countries despite their spectacular economic growth.

It was to look for viable solutions to this problem that 170 delegates from 40 countries met at the World Toilet Summit in New Delhi last month.

The main theme of the summit - co-hosted by Sulabh, the Indian government and the Singapore-based World Toilet Organisation - was realising the United Nation's Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of people living without water and sanitation by 2015.

The UN has declared 2008 the 'UN Year of Sanitation' as part of efforts to reach this goal.

The deliberations at the summit centred on how to bring low-cost, environmentally safe toilets to millions of people, mostly in developing countries. It is a daunting task.

In India, the first sanitation law was passed in 1878, just 30 years after being passed in England. Another Act banning manual scavenging and construction of dry latrines was passed in 1993.

As always, there is a wide gap between government policies and their implementation.

Although cities like Delhi have laws imposing fines of 50 rupees (less than S$2) for people caught relieving themselves in the open, they are hardly enforced.

Dr Pathak said unless adequate social awareness is created, significant progress will be elusive.

Health experts warn that human waste that seeps through the soil contaminates the water table and water bodies.

In India, this causes waterborne diseases that kill 500,000 children every year before they reach the age of five, mostly from diarrhoea.

According to the World Health Organisation, the lack of safe water and sanitation causes 80 per cent of enteric diseases like cholera, dysentery, typhoid, paratyphoid, hepatitis, hookworm and diarrhoea.

But the situation in India is improving ever so slightly even in the rural areas.

A Rural Sanitation Programme launched in 1986 was restructured to the Total Sanitation Campaign in 1999. Under it, 9.45 million flush-latrines have been built, according to official statistics.

Federal Rural Development Minister Raghvansh Prasad Singh told last month's conference that India was investing US$3.45 billion (S$5 billion) in sanitation projects, including schemes to re-train nightsoil carriers for other vocations.

However, a resource crunch and shortage of water make building expensive sewage systems in remote rural areas unfeasible.

Dr Pathak said: 'Sewage systems are essentially 19th-century technology. We need modern solutions.'

His Sulabh sanitation movement has introduced eco-friendly, affordable and hygienic twin-pit composting toilets that use less than two litres of water to flush, as against conventional toilets that need 12 to 14 litres. They can be built with locally available materials, are free from foul smell, flies and mosquitoes and can easily be connected to sewers when the latter are set up.

Dr Pathak, who began building these simple toilets in the 1970s, has also developed a low-cost system that turns waste into water, fertiliser for crops and biogas to generate electricity.

Sulabh has set up over 6,000 such community toilets across India. It has also helped 15 countries in Africa to build such toilets.

Cambodia and Laos have approached his organisation to set up Sulabh toilets there, he said.

At the summit, a South African company, African Sanitation, showed a solar-powered commode that runs without water, and requires no plumbing and almost no maintenance.

Once a week, a tray below it is emptied of waste that has been turned into an almost odourless compost by a solar heater and natural bacteria.

But as African Sanitation's Lukas Oosthuizen discovered, cultural differences would require the addition of a water tray to the design before it could be deployed effectively in India.

'We discovered that people here are washers, not wipers,' he said.

jayaramp_@hotmail.com

'Sewage systems are essentially 19th-century technology. We need modern solutions.'

DR BINDESWAR PATHAK (above), a sanitation campaigner in India, on the need for eco-friendly, affordable and hygienic solutions to the world's sanitation problems

NEW-AGE LOOS: Different models of Sulabh flush compost toilets - which require less than two litres of water to flush - on display at the Sulabh International Toilet Museum in New Delhi in October. -- PHOTO: AFP

Beware hazards of playing the race card - KL Riots

Dec 7, 2007
FOREIGN MATTERS
Beware hazards of playing the race card
By Janadas Devan

IT WAS eye-catching: Hindraf, the Hindu Rights Action Committee in Malaysia, demanded last Sunday the appointment of a Chinese as the country's finance minister and a non-Malay as its second deputy prime minister. Too many top portfolios in the Cabinet were being held by Malays, Hindraf complained.
A few days earlier, it was announced that Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam was to be Singapore's Finance Minister. Not a single Singapore newspaper bothered to note that he was a non-Chinese. Many Chinese Singaporeans may have difficulty pronouncing his name - Mr Tah-mun, they call him - but the fact that he is of Jaffna Tamil origin is a matter of profound indifference to them. He is obviously well-qualified for the job; end of story.

And as for the deputy prime ministership, two non- Chinese have held that post in Singapore's history - the late Mr S Rajaratnam, and Professor S Jayakumar, who is one of the two incumbent DPMs. Nobody ever suspected either Mr Rajaratnam or Prof Jayakumar got there because he was a non-Chinese.

What were Singaporeans talking about last week? Among other things, they were wondering if a non-Chinese could be prime minister. A survey last month had indicated that as many as 94 per cent of Chinese Singaporeans said they would not mind a non-Chinese as prime minister. But former Cabinet minister S Dhanabalan doubted the finding. Singapore is not ready for a non-Chinese in the top job, he told this newspaper.

And who wrote to The Straits Times' Forum page disagreeing with him? Chinese Singaporeans! I think Mr Dhanabalan is correct, as does this newspaper's Political Editor Zuraidah Ibrahim - all non-Chinese, in case you have not noticed - but here were Chinese assuring us we were wrong.

So I'll make a modest prediction here: Fifteen to 20 years from now, a woman will be in the running for the top job. That glass ceiling will be smashed first. And 30 to 50 years from now, a non-Chinese will be in the running for the top job. For purely symbolic reasons, I hope he or she is a Machindian - a thoroughbred, kopi-susu Other.

Far from perfect

WHAT idle speculation! What luxury it is to talk in this fashion! Race relations in Singapore are by no means perfect - racism still exists - but things could be far, far worse. Take a look at Malaysia.

Why should there be a Hindu Rights Action Committee? It is unfortunate enough that Malaysian political groups should be organised along racial lines. But to find minorities dicing themselves into even smaller minorities - Hindu Indians, Muslim Indians, Tamil Indians, non-Tamil Indians, ad infinitum - reveals how extraordinarily divisive identity politics has become in the country.

Hindraf organised a march in Kuala Lumpur two weeks ago, at which demonstrators carried portraits of Mahatma Gandhi and Queen Elizabeth II. Why did they not think of hoisting portraits of the Malaysian King or of 'Bapa Malaysia', Tunku Abdul Rahman?

Why did Hindraf make appeals to India for help? And why did the Indian Prime Minister himself, Dr Manmohan Singh, feel it was his place to intervene on behalf of Malaysia's Indians?

'Whenever Indian citizens abroad or people of Indian origin living abroad run into difficulties, that obviously is a source of concern to us,' he had said.

There are so many things wrong with this picture - so many things that should sound the alarm - one does not quite know where to start.


First, the Indian government's claim of a watching brief over Indian Malaysians was deeply troubling.
For one thing, it implied Indian Malaysians did not belong where they were. 'People of Indian origin living abroad' clearly implied that India was the 'home' and Malaysia the 'abroad' for Indian Malaysians. How could Dr Singh have thought such an implication would benefit Indian Malaysians?

For another, if New Delhi can claim a watching brief over overseas Indians, Beijing can claim the same over overseas Chinese too. It does not. But if Indian Malaysians can look to India for redress, why cannot Chinese minorities in the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia look to China? How would such divvying-up of oversight responsibilities between Big Brother India and Big Brother China help multiracial South-east Asia?

The Indian government did not realise the serious implications of what it was saying, and Malaysian officials were correct to tell it to 'lay off'. Any other Asean government would have done the same.


Second, Hindraf's behaviour points to a degree of alienation and disillusionment that should worry all Malaysian politicians - in the ruling as well as opposition parties.
Malaysia's roughly 1.8 million Indians are not recent immigrants. The overwhelming majority are at least the grandchildren of immigrants. If after 50 years of Malaysian independence, a number of them are still automatically hoisting portraits of foreign totemic figures at demonstrations, there is something deeply wrong.

It points to shortcomings in Malaysia's system of preferences for bumiputeras. Now almost 40 years old, that system has shifted from being a means of uplifting Malays economically to one that serves to entrench Malay dominance. Thus, what was once perceived as a necessary leg-up for Malays - affirmative action - is now perceived by the other races as discriminatory action against them.

And because the system has lasted for so long, forward-looking Malaysian leaders are finding it difficult to reform it. The slightest indication of change - for example, in Kuala Lumpur waiving bumiputera set-asides for some businesses in Johor's Iskandar Development Region - is taken as an attack on settled policy by various Malay groups. Why is the understanding of 50 years being challenged, they demand? Why is Malay dominance being threatened?

A Malaysia unable to break free from sterile identity politics will find it increasingly difficult to compete in a globalised world.


Third, Hindraf's actions - and the reactions to them - show the fissures in Malaysia are widening, not narrowing.
'The Malays have never taken to the streets, so do not force us to do so as we will draw our parangs to defend our country's sovereignty,' a member of the ruling Umno's Supreme Council, Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Chik, was reported saying.

Bumiputeras constitute 65 per cent of Malaysia's population. But that figure includes non-Malay bumiputeras, such as the Kadazans and Ibans of East Malaysia. Malay bumiputeras alone number about 13 million, less than 55 per cent of the country's total population, barely a plurality.

An Umno-led ruling coalition that loses substantial support from Malaysia's minorities will find itself having to depend even more on Malays to preserve its two-thirds majority in Parliament. To ensure that - and with Parti Islam SeMalaysia snapping at its heels - its hot-heads may be tempted to ratchet up their 'parang' talk. That is a dangerous game.

It is urgent that Malaysia's leaders speak to, of and for Malaysia. That is the only way to cool its red-hot identity politics. Speak to, of and for Malaysia, please - fast.

janadas@sph.com.sg

Bali must go beyond Kyoto

Dec 7, 2007
Bali must go beyond Kyoto

THE United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its final report last month, in time for the thousands of officials gathered in Bali for the UN climate conference to ponder the consequences of not acting to slow the emission of greenhouse gases. The consequences of even a modest warming of 1 to 3 deg C would be devastating, the panel said. The thousands in Bali should bear in mind that the IPCC's report, alarming though it was, was probably a little behind the curve. Because its findings had to be reviewed by delegates from 130 countries - and because its authors could not take into account the latest data - the report may well have understated somewhat the rapidity with which the globe may be warming. 'The world is already at or above the worst- case scenarios in terms of emissions,' said Mr Gernot Klepper of Germany's Kiel Institute for World Economy. 'In terms of emissions, we are moving past the most pessimistic estimates of the IPCC, and by some estimates we are above that red line.'
The Bali conference is unlikely to produce an updated and strengthened Kyoto Protocol. Come to think of it, the 1997 Kyoto climate conference that produced the Protocol did not produce a sea-change either. The United States has yet to ratify the treaty; carbon emissions have continued to rise in many of the industrialised countries that did ratify; and emissions have of course soared in many of the developing countries that did ratify but were not required to cut emissions. Since 1997, however, awareness has grown, together with the science, and there is a greater readiness among peoples, rich and poor, to act. What is lacking still is political will.

US President George W. Bush last week called for his country to 'lead the world to produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions', but indicated that he still opposed mandatory carbon emission limits. The US Senate is considering a Bill that would do just that - a 15 per cent cut by 2020 and 75 per cent by 2050. Such a US lead can help persuade countries such as China and India to also make firm commitments. But with or without the US, the rest of the world must act. The Bali conference can help to mobilise global public opinion. It will have succeeded if it gets most of the world behind a coherent agenda on what to do beyond Kyoto. For this reason, even Indonesia's pledge to preserve 4,300ha of its forests permanently, though welcome, has to be regarded as but a faltering first step. According to Greenpeace, Indonesia destroys 4,300ha of forests in half a day, every day. Everybody - Singaporeans, Indonesians, Americans, bar none - must do more.

Nature Society moots 2 new spots for attraction

Nature Society moots 2 new spots for attraction
STB studying society's report stressing fragility of proposed site for nature-themed attraction
By Lim Wei Chean
7 Dec 2007

LEAVE that stretch of Mandai forest alone. Build the nature-themed attraction on one of two alternative sites.

This was the crux of the Nature Society's response to the Singapore Tourism Board's (STB) announcement two weeks ago that it was releasing a 30ha plot of land in the Mandai area for development into a nature-themed attraction.

The main thrust of the 18-page report, submitted to the STB last Saturday, emphasised the fragility of the proposed Mandai site, which does not fall within the boundaries of the nature reserve.

It said the site is too valuable to be damaged for another attraction which may suffer the fate of Tang Dynasty City in the Jurong Lake area.

Dr Ho Hua Chew, who chairs the society's conservation sub-committee, shared key points in the report, which included suggestions of two alternative sites for development, with The Straits Times yesterday.

STB's vision was to develop the Mandai area into a nature attractions cluster - with the existing Singapore Zoo and Night Safari as anchors.

RELATED LINKS
Sites in contention
The new site, about three times the size of VivoCity, along with a new attraction by Wildlife Reserves Singapore, hopes to double the current annual visitorship of 2.5 million to the area by 2015.

The Nature Society gave two reasons why it says the proposed area is a bad spot:

Fragmentation: The nature reserve's forest had been divided into seven 'habitat islands' standing in isolation because of the creation of golf courses, roads, pipelines and expansion of the existing reservoirs.

This results in the loss of humidity in the forest, increased temperatures, invasion and predation by alien and non-forest species, as well as introduction of diseases to forest wildlife to which they have no immunity.

Forest degradation: Forest cover within the Central Catchment Reserve had been cleared to make way for projects like the Zoo and Night Safari (89ha), the covered reservoir at Upper Pierce (11ha) and Nee Soon Firing Range (20ha).

Animals at risk include forest frogs, birds like the fish eagle, chestnut-winged babble; mammals like the mouse deer, pangolin and the rare leopard cat, known to exist only in two areas here.

The society proposes allowing the land, which is full of mature fruit trees like durian and rambutan, to revert back to a secondary forest.

It also seeks to have it designated as an official buffer zone for the nature reserve so it can continue to serve as a forest connector for the forest's wildlife to forage for food.

In its place, the Nature Society identified two alternative spots for the nature-themed attraction.

The first is the ecologically less sensitive area between Yio Chu Kang Road and Lower Seletar Reservoir with its scenic woodlands, scrubland and marshes.

If it has to be in the Mandai area, then let it be the military site bounded by Mandai Track 15, the Bukit Timah Expressway, Mandai Lake Road and the firing range.

This will not only provide enough space for development but also leave enough forest to act as a buffer for the reserve to enable animals to move around.

An STB spokesman said that it has received the report and is looking through it.

She added that STB will be setting up a meeting with the Nature Society to discuss in greater depth the concerns raised.

weichean@sph.com.sg

A price for solving water problems

Dec 1, 2007
A price for solving water problems
Subsidised drinking water rates will have to go to invest money on water infrastructure
By Tania Tan

WATER prices must go up if the region's water woes are to be addressed.

This politically sticky issue will be among the concerns that Asia-Pacific leaders will grapple with when they convene in Japan on Monday for the inaugural Asia-Pacific Water Summit.

Some 300 representatives from 49 countries will be at the two-day dialogue.

'We hope to seek commitment from the region's leaders to move water higher up on their national development agendas,' said Singapore's Ambassador- at-large Tommy Koh, who is also chairman of the Asia-Pacific Water Forum, the event's organiser. The summit is expected to be held every two to three years.

Key on the agenda: increasing public and private investment in water and sanitation projects.

RELATED LINKS
Asia's water report card
The Philippine-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimates that some US$20 billion (S$29 billion) will be needed annually to help build the region's water and sanitation infrastructure over the next decade.

ADB, which is also a sponsor of the Japanese water summit, already invests some US$2 billion annually in water operations.

Another of its efforts to improve water infrastructure is

the launch of the Asian Water and Development Outlook report, penned by noted water experts, including Stockholm Water Prize laureate Professor Asit Biswas.

One message is that, with the increasing need to improve water services, it is 'impossible to continue with the traditional idea of providing drinking water free of cost or at highly subsidised rates'.

A United Nations report pegged the price of water in India at just US$0.01 per cubic m, while Cambodians pay just US$0.09. These countries also suffer some of the most severe water shortages and sanitation problems in the region.

Households in Singapore pay $1.17 per cubic m.

'By diluting the definition of access to clean water and considering sanitation only in a very restricted sense, developing countries, including many in Asia, are mortgaging their future in terms of water security,' said Prof Biswas.

The Stockholm Water Prize is the highest honour in the water industry.

The summit outcomes will be presented at future political events, including the G8 summit in Japan next year.

Live updates from each day's sessions will be available online at www.ips.org

taniat@sph.com.sg


SCIENCE TALK

Asia has its own models to beat water woes
Complex challenge can be met as keys to solution exist within region as a whole
By Asit Biswas


POTABLE WATER: A boy delivering drinking water to a village in Manila. A new paradigm is needed to solve Asia's water problems in a cost-effective manner. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

LEONARDO da Vinci said water is the driver of nature.
Nearly half a millennium later, his wisdom can be considered prophetic. Increasingly, water is seen as the planet's driving lifeblood.

Asia, poised for greater growth, needs rational water development and efficient water management to ensure that such growth is not jeopardised.

Moreover, having adequate access to energy and water is one of the keys to resolving many existing societal problems.

Human survival and ecosystem conservation depend on the reliable availability of adequate water of appropriate quality. After all, food and agricultural production requires water.

In recent years, this water-food linkage has become more complex because of social and environmental concerns, technological developments, globalisation and management practices.

With the Industrial Revolution, water needs started to increase significantly, as did its collection, treatment and waste-water disposal.

Environmental issues for water management became salient during the 1970s. Development activities, including those on water, had to consider environmental implications, which gained momentum in the 1980s and are now universally accepted as integral to efficient and rational water management.

With rapid industrialisation and demands for a better quality of life, energy requirements have gone up as well. In recent years, the energy needs of Asian developing countries have increased very rapidly and will keep doing so. These have major water-related implications.

We can confidently predict, on current assessments of water resources, expected future water demands, available technology, knowledge and experience, that Asian developing member countries (DMCs) of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) should not experience, or expect, a future crisis because of scarcity of water.

What is important is that, irrespective of the rhetoric on a looming global water crisis and likely water wars, there is now enough knowledge, technology and expertise available in Asia to solve existing and future water problems.

Nevertheless, some Asian DMCs will find it much harder than others to ensure their future water security. This, however, is likely to be the general situation not only for the water sector, but also for all other development-related sectors in those countries.

Major and fundamental changes in water governance practices are thus needed. There are many success stories in Asia in this regard.

For example, during the past 30 years, Singapore has made remarkable breakthroughs in its governance practices as a result of which it now has one of the best, if not the best, water supplies, waste-water management, and overall catchment management in the world.

In the process, its national water agency, the PUB, has gained full confidence of the public in the level of services it consistently provides. Most of this transition happened within about two decades.

It is now important for improving the performance of the water sector that a comprehensive search be made to identify similar success stories from all over Asia in areas like water supply, waste-water management, irrigation, and hydropower development.

These successes need to be reviewed independently by knowledgeable and experienced water experts in terms of their veracity, long-term sustainability, and potential replicability in other parts of Asia. It is also essential to analyse the enabling context of each success story to see how and why it managed to make remarkable progress, when other urban centres did not.

Successful Asian good-practice models are essential for South-South knowledge and experience transfer in the context of the special monsoon climatic conditions of the region. European and North American models have often not been successful in Asia.

Successful models from Asian monsoon areas are likely to be more replicable to other Asian DMCs than are models directly imported from Europe and North America. However, the Asian models should only be applied after appropriate modifications for site-specific conditions.

Improving data reliability and availability is another hurdle that must be overcome.

Data must also be readily accessible to the people who need them, ranging from national and international organisations to research and academic institutions, non-governmental organisations and civil society in general.

If the status of water development and management is to be improved, it is essential that collection, quality and management of data receive significantly higher priority in all Asian DMCs than has been the case to date.

A new paradigm of 'business unusual' is needed that can solve the region's water and waste-water problems in a cost-effective and equitable manner. It will require a new tripartite partnership, different from the earlier models: government, corporate (public or private) and society.

The tasks of the government could include formulation of an overall framework within which the three parties can operate, and the promulgation of regulatory regimes for the service providers.

The corporate partner could be public or private. If public, it should be an autonomous and accountable government entity with operational and financial autonomy, and free from political and bureaucratic interference.

In fact, many water utilities in Asian DMCs now fail to function efficiently because of unnecessary rules, regulations, administrative requirements, and bureaucratic and political interference.

Under such conditions, it would indeed be a miracle if a utility succeeds in providing reliable levels of services efficiently and equitably to all on a sustainable basis.

The Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority is to be held up as a model of an autonomous public corporate partner - it has already revolutionised the water supply of that city. This type of model needs further consideration for possible use by other Asian DMCs.

The third partner should be civil society, which, as a general rule, needs to move away from its current apathetic response to poor and unacceptable levels of water and waste-water service delivery.

Consumers will have to pay a fair price for receiving water and waste-water services, so they need to be encouraged to demand good-quality service.

Water quality management has mostly been a neglected issue in Asian DMCs. The health costs and social impacts are likely to be substantial at present. While these have not been carefully assessed for the region, the annual economic cost is likely to be billions of dollars.

Institutional strengthening and restructuring, inter-institutional coordination, and capacity building in technical, administrative, and managerial aspects are urgent requirements, as are significant improvements in the formulation and implementation of legal and regulatory regimes, and transparency and non-corruptibility of the associated administrative and management processes.

Considering the massive funding needed to manage water quality because of past neglect, it is highly unlikely that the public sector can generate the needed investment funds. Funding that can be generated from private sector and multilateral and bilateral agencies will be useful, but even this is unlikely to be enough.

New forms of funding mechanisms are needed, and need to be available on a sustained basis for a reasonable period of time.

Despite the deteriorating water quality in many Asian DMCs, the issue is not getting the political priority and social attention it deserves at national and local levels. Overall governance, including political, legal and institutional conditions, has often contributed to an environment that has not encouraged new investments. This situation needs to be changed, and a comprehensive perspective is essential.

Solving the water problems of the future will require additional skills and capacity, innovative approaches and new mindsets. A more holistic approach that can successfully coordinate the energy, food, environment and industrial policies of a nation, all of which have direct linkages to water, is needed.

All these factors make future water management in Asia a far more complex task than ever before. The challenge is formidable but it can be met, as the knowledge, experience and technology to solve the problems in a timely manner exist within Asia, not in one location, but within the region as a whole.


The writer is head of the Mexico City-based Third World Centre for Water Management, and winner of the 2006 Stockholm Water Prize - the highest honour in the water industry. This article is excerpted from his contribution to the inaugural Asian Water Development Outlook, a publication by the Asian Development Bank.

Finland stays top of global class

Finland stays top of global class

Finland and South Korea remain among the superpowers of education, according to a major international study.
The three-yearly Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) shows that the two countries are in the top five for reading and maths.

South Korea has made rapid progress since 2000, says the report - with its pupils improving by the equivalent of a whole school year.

The rankings are based on tests taken by 15-year-olds in 57 countries.

Finland, a consistent top performer in international education surveys, also came top of the science league table, published last week.

The survey, gathered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), also highlights the improvements in Poland
The rankings for reading, based on tests taken in 2006, show that Poland is ninth placed, among a group of leading countries identified as significantly above average.

The latest findings also show the extent of global competition in education - with the northern European countries now challenged by and overtaken by Asian rivals, including Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea.

South Korea has continued to strengthen its position - after a remarkable rise in achievement against international competitors.

In the 1960s, the OECD says South Korea's national wealth was similar to Afghanistan's.

But a sustained drive in education has seen it rise to the upper ranks in international education leagues - both in subject scores and in completion rates in secondary school.

As with Finland, there has been an emphasis in South Korea on education as a key to economic success and the "knowledge economy".

The OECD also highlights improvements in maths scores from teenagers in Mexico and Greece.

The UK has shown a downward turn in its standing - leaving the top 10 for both maths and reading despite an increase in spending on education.

It has joined other major European countries such as Germany and France in a group with "average" standards for maths and reading.

And the report says that overall the industrialised OECD countries have not seen improvements to match extra investment.

It says that between 1995 and 2004, OECD countries increased education spending by 39% on average, but that in response "learning outcomes have generally remained flat".

For full rankings - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7126388.stm