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The importance of water as a life-giving resource has been thrust into the forefront over the past few months by the Cholera scourge that is gripping the country. This has highlighted the need for awareness to be raised and for people to be educated about adequate sanitation, health and hygiene.

We are acutely aware, now more than ever, of the intimate link between water and health. Poor water quality, sanitation and personal hygiene risks the spread of cholera and other water-related diseases. Good water quality, good sanitation and proper personal hygiene greatly reduce, if not actually eliminate, the risks
The slogan for National Water Week 2001 is therefore truly appropriate: Amanzi Ayimpilo - water is life.

With this campaign and national water week events, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) is encouraging all South Africans to focus on the need to restore and preserve the integrity of our most precious resource, water. We have a responsibility to make sure this scarce resource is managed in an effective and sustainable manner.

The theme for World Water Day 2001, celebrated this past Tuesday, was "Health a key to prosperity" and focussed on water and health. The link between water and health presents a unique opportunity to encourage awareness-raising activities around water's importance to health in the life of all South Africans.
Given this background, National Water Week is an important annual event on the calendar of DWAF and the water sector in the country. It affords DWAF and its stakeholders the opportunity to renew national awareness, focusing on the value of water and the need for sustainable management, as well as:

* Realising the right of all South Africans to have access to water;
* Ensuring the protection of our rivers, streams and wetlands;
* Eradicating water borne diseases (such as Cholera), thereby reducing child mortality;
* Empowering communities, especially women, to manage and improve their living conditions; and
* Highlighting the vital interdependence between the economy and our water resources.

The principle of sustainable development of natural resources requires a long-term perspective and commitment. It requires all of mankind, not only governments, to take the steps that will help reverse the major trends that are threatening our common future, such as environmental degradation, global warming and desertification. Most of all it requires that we confront the patterns and effects of inequality and poverty.

In the context of South Africa, and most of the developing world, support for sustainable development is important not only to protect the environment, but more importantly to eradicate poverty. It is a truism, that development that fails to benefit the poor has no soul and development that fails to safeguard the environment has no vision.

It is therefore appropriate that we celebrated Human Rights Day and World Day for Water on consecutive days this week.

The concept of sustainable development has two dominant pillars, environmental sustainability and social justice - the one not attainable without the other.
Our Constitution has often been lauded as being social, caring, positive, horizontal, participatory and multicultural. It is also conscious about its transformative role and mission. The Constitution has received such accolades especially because it recognises that human rights can not only exist on paper but must be translated into actions that will have a practical effect on the lives of citizens and communities, especially on those who are most in need. This responsibility lies primarily on Government, which must drive a strong social reform process.

However, the demand for delivery in terms of these fundamental human rights does not take place in a socio-political vacuum. Admittedly it requires effective delivery by Government, but Government alone simply cannot realise the required changes without the positive empowerment of communities taking an active role to control their own lives.

Without the contribution of the wider community, we will move very slowly towards the achievement of our goals. In Government, we recognise the value of joining forces with communities, civil society bodies and individuals that are committed to making our constitutionally entrenched rights real for all the people.

Indeed, if we are to be serious about making rights real for the majority of South Africans, then our efforts should be increased in the rural areas and amongst the disadvantaged sectors of our society. That in fact should be our target for the delivery of all socio-economic rights.

To a large extent, this points to some of the ideological divides existing in the political and social arena today. It is a fallacy to suggest that the delivery of political rights alone can deliver the goal of a democratic and free society. Our Constitution is far-reaching in its commitment to the principle of the interdependency of all human rights -political, as well as civil, economic, social and cultural rights.

This principle - of the interdependency of rights - is gaining ground internationally and is explicitly endorsed in a number of human rights declarations and resolutions adopted by the international community.

Following the direction of these international rights instruments, our Constitution embraces the notion that human rights should be treated holistically in order to promote substantive human welfare and self-realisation.

We firmly believe that all human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated. Democracy, development and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. There is a natural link between the personal, political and socio-economic dimensions of human dignity and well-being.

The inclusion of socio-economic rights as justifiable rights in the South African Bill of Rights makes the redress of inequity and poverty a matter of fundamental constitutional concern. The vital interests of impoverished and oppressed individuals and communities are thus explicitly recognised and endorsed in the supreme law of our country.

A 1995 World Bank report, which outlined the social and economic inequalities in South Africa, emphasised the strong rural dimension of poverty in South Africa. Some 75% of South Africa's poor live in rural areas, they found. This is also where the greatest need for clean piped water is.

Since 1994 the Government has embarked on substantial restructuring of institutions and reform of laws precisely to ensure a greater, more all-encompassing impact on all grassroots communities and poor rural communities in particular.

Delivery is the key word for this Government, and lies at the heart of President Thabo Mbeki's presidential agenda. We should therefore not only talk about rights and draft policies about rights. It is our task to effect actual delivery.

And of all the infrastructures, perhaps the most important, the one with the most impact, the one most capable of genuine upliftment is the protection and management of our water resources and the delivery of clean, piped water to communities throughout the country.

Amanzi Ayimpilo!

Thank you.

Issued by Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Development

24 March 2001