SEGMENTS OF SOCIETY IMPORTANT FOR WATER MANAGEMENT, SAYS M'SIAN DPM

PETALING JAYA (Malaysia), Nov 19 (Bernama) -- To address the issue of water and waste water management in developing countries, it is important to take into consideration the segments of society, particularly the types of housing areas, Najib Razak said.

The deputy prime minister said the segments would indicate the level of
socio-economy, mentality and knowledge, which was important for any planned
changes in their lifestyles and social engineering.

"It is also important to segregate the funding framework of any proposed
project. This is the framework we have developed and implemented successfully in
Malaysia," he said at the Asia Pacific Regional Water Conference 2008 in Subang
Jaya near here Tuesday.

The high-income urban community was generally willing to pay for sewerage
services and high water supply tariff, therefore a designated system could be
accordingly provided.

Najib, who is also the Finance Minister, said that in Malaysia, for
instance, all new housing estates developed by the private sector were required
to provide water supply and small decentralised sewerage treatment facilities,
which was regulated by the National Water Services Commission.

He proposed that the concept of sustainable sanitation be seriously
studied,
emphasising at least three major components -- separation of water pollutants at
the source, decentralisation of facilities to increase efficiency and reuse of
by-product, especially treated waste water and sludge.

To fully benefit from sustainable sanitation, it was important to redefine
the concept and terminology of waste water, he said.

"Some say used water or reclaimable water is more appropriate instead of
the
negative connotation in the word waste water."

Najib strongly believed that sustainable sanitation was more appropriate to
make the Millennium Development Goal for water and sanitation by 2015 a reality.

"We need a transformation and a new framework. Sustainable sanitation is
flexible in approching any community and it requires low cost compared with the
conventional sanitation approach," he said.

It was also important that a framework of sustainable sanitation be drafted
to ensure much easier adoptation in developing countries where water supply and
sanitation infrastructres were still in the developing stages, he said.

The major challenge now was to provide the world population, especially the
poor, with adequate water and sanitation facilities.

Najib said that according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the
United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), about 1.1 billion people worldwide live
without access to clean water supply and 2.4 billion people without proper
sanitation.

"The future scenario that water resources will be further depleted by a
growing world population will be coupled with environmental degradation due to
poor pollution control, particularly in mostdeveloping countries", he said.

At present numerous efforts have been initiated in many developing
countries
to overcome environmental degradation.

In Malaysia, besides new regulations and policies, a significant amount of
investments had been directed into proper sewerage facilities, hazardous waste
treatment and disposal incinerator and sanitary landfills for solid and
hazardous wastes and river rehabilitation schemes, Najib said.

He said the development of water supply and sewerage facilities under the
Ninth Malaysia Plan would continue as there was a dire need to improve rural and
urban systems for the rakyat.
-- BERNAMA