ISLAMABAD, Sept 20: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Wednesday said that the government was committed to providing safe drinking water and sanitation facilities in the country to improve the quality of life of the people.

Inaugurating the second South Asian Conference on Sanitation (SACOSAN), organised jointly by the government, UNDP, the World Bank and other partner organisations, he said that sanitation policy had been formulated and would be implemented immediately after its approval by the federal cabinet.

He said that over Rs120 billion would also be spent under the Medium-Term Development Framework (MTDF) between 2005 and 2010 for providing safe drinking water and sanitation facilities. He said that the government was already implementing “The drinking water for all programme” to the entire population by installing water purification plants at the village level.

He said that the experience has shown that sanitation needs of the people could not be met by the government alone and it was high time that the governments along with civil-society organisations, donors, community and academicians should join hands to transform the sanitation from a supply-side government-sponsored programme into a demand-driven popular movement. “This has already started at a small level and needs to be replicated and multiplied on a national level.”

He assured that the government would fully implement the recommendations of the UN Secretary General’s advisory board on water and sanitation and also the recommendations forwarded from this conference towards celebrating the year 2008 as the “International Year of Sanitation”.

He said that other challenges being faced by the government included access to basic services such as education, health, population welfare, clean drinking water and sanitation, empowering women, energy security, water security, achieving higher productivity, coping with natural catastrophes, pandemics and global warming, etc.

He said that the majority of these problems were being faced by the entire South Asian region and it was encouraging to see that regional cooperation had enhanced in the recent past, adding that momentum was needed to make it sustainable.

He said that all the countries of the region should pool their energies, experiences and best practices as it would be a win-win situation for all. He said that the cooperation should be deepened by resolving the disputes and directing recourses towards development and by creating synergies for mutual benefit.

Earlier, UNICEF’s South Asia Regional Director Cecilia Lotse said that all regional countries shared the commitment of achieving the Millennium Development Goal 7, Target 10 -– to reduce by half the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation.

She said that over 100 million people had built toilets since the last SACOSAN held in Bangladesh where nine regional countries had signed the Dhaka Declaration calling for people-centred, community-led, gender-sensitive and demand-driven solution for proper sanitation and hygiene.