L20 – Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation (SDS) for All

UNU-INWEH contributes to a major policy research project designed to stimulate debate on the future role of a First Ministers G-20 Forum in addressing critical global challenges. The goal is to examine, through the lens of specific issues, whether such a “Leaders G20 or L20”, comprising the largest and most powerful developed and developing countries, could be more effective than existing multilateral fora in galvanizing “win-win-win” solutions to intractable global challenges. The initiative, commissioned by the Prime Minister of Canada, was undertaken by the Centre for Global Studies (University of Victoria), the Centre for International Governance Innovation (University of Waterloo) and UNU, at the request of the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs.

The provision of “safe drinking water and sanitation” (SDS) was chosen as one of six “intractable” issues endorsed for examination at an expert workshop held in Alexandria, Egypt (1-2 December 2004), co-organized by UNU-INWEH. In February 2005, a stocktaking workshop was held with the Canadian Prime Minister, at which UNU-INWEH’s water proposal was one of the four selected for further development of a political implementation plan; this will be undertaken by an expert working group in early 2006.

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