WATER DAY: World forum pledges to tackle water crunch

A seven-day forum on the world's dwindling water resources is expected to end with a pledge to work harder to provide clean water and sanitation, but without agreement on the recognition of access to drinking water as a "basic human right".A seven-day focus on the world's water crunch was winding up in the Turkish capital of Istanbul Sunday with an expected pledge to work harder to provide access to clean water and sanitation and tackle worsening scarcity. The declaration was to be published at the end of the fifth World Water Forum by more than 100 ministers or their stand-ins, although activists on Saturday attacked the non-binding document as worthless. "The world is facing rapid and unprecedented global changes, including population growth, migration, urbanisation, climate change, desertification, drought, degradation and land use, economic and diet changes," a draft of the statement said. It sets out a roster of recommendations for action, including greater cooperation to ease disputes over water, measures to address floods and drought, curbing pollution and better management of rivers, lakes and aquifers. The World Water Forum is held every three years, and has gained in importance as an arena for debating the globe's amplifying problems of freshwater. At least 25,000 policymakers, water specialists and grassroots workers took part in this year's event, a record attendance.  Campaigners representing the rural poor, the environment and organised labour on Saturday criticised the Forum as a vehicle for privatising of water resources and called for future meetings to be held under the UN flag. The Forum is staged by the World Water Council, a French-based organisation whose funding comes in large part from the water industry. Around 880 million people do not have access to decent sources of drinking water, while 2.5 billion people do not have access to proper sanitation, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said in a report on Tuesday. By 2030, the number of people living under severe water stress is expected to rise to 3.9 billion, a tally that does not include the impacts of global warming, it said.