On 17 January 2007, the Parties to the Protocol on Water and Health to the 1992 Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes are meeting in Geneva for the first time. Their goal is to translate into action the Protocol’s provisions for the coming three years. The meeting is expected to launch ambitious programmes to prevent, control and reduce water-related diseases.

“This meeting of the Protocol Parties represents a key step of a process intended to increase the number of European citizens with access to safe drinking-water and basic sanitation,” says Dr. Roberto Bertollini, Director of the Special Programme for Health and Environment of the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe. “Access to safe water is a basic human right ensuring the physical and social well-being of populations, but it is still not attained in today’s Europe. How can we accept to lose 37 of our children to diarrhoea each day for lack of access to safe water? We therefore call on all countries to be bold in the adoption of an Action Plan that will significantly reduce the current water-related disease burden.”