WaterSan Perspective
12th June, 2013
Ugandan Minister of State for Water Resources, Ms Betty Bigombe says she along with Ms Kitty van der Heijden, Director of the Department for Climate, Environment, Energy and Water and the Ambassador for Sustainable Development, Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs will jointly take the lead in putting water integrity in the global development agenda, especially in ongoing processes like the Post-2015 Development Agenda.
This was during the first Water Integrity Forum that came to a successful conclusion over the weekend in Delft, the Netherlands.
Before making the declaration, Betty Bigombe and Kitty van der Heijden made an impromptu consultation during the closing session of the Forum.
Apart from this political support, the Water Integrity Forum also released a draft statement after intense consultations with the Forum participants who agreed to it in principle.
One of the highlights of the statement called for moving towards a universal code of conduct for individual and institutional behaviour.
The Forum statement cautioned that the costs of inaction are too high to remain passive.
The Forum and its partners call on governments, UN and other international organizations, the corporate sector and civil society to promote water integrity in their policies and actions.
The first Water Integrity Forum was jointly organized by the Water Integrity Network (WIN), UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education and the Water Governance Centre (WGC) in Delft, the Netherlands from 5 – 7 June 2013.
It was attended by more than 100 water and integrity experts from over 60 organizations across the world.
The Forum took stock of progress made in addressing integrity challenges and helped in forging coalitions for expanding the base and increasing the pace on water integrity.
The Forum brought the problem of corruption out of the closet into the open and raising the stakes to address this challenge.
For more information on the forum, please visit: www.waterintegrityforum.com