UN envoy Chowdhury urges water availability for the poor

United Nations, May 7 (UNI) The United Nations has called for a global campaign to supply safe drinking water to the millions of people in the most impoverished countries.

In the opening speech over the weekend at the First Global Peace Film Festival in Beppu, Japan, Mr Anwarul K Chowdhury, the UN envoy for Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries (LDCs) and Small Island States, proposed a campaign to ensure at least one litre of water a day for each of the 300 million people without access to safe drinking water.

Excerpts of Chowdhury's remarks were made available at the United Nations in New York.

Mr Chowdhury, a former Bangladesh envoy to the United Nations, said in recognition of the value of water to human health, well being, poverty reduction, sustainable development and peace, the global body had declared 2005-2015 to be the ''International Decade for Action: Water for Life.'' Yet, over 40 per cent of the population in the LDCs remains without access to an improved source of drinking water.

To achieve sustainable peace, he advocated improving ''living conditions of the whole of society through poverty eradication, equitable economic development, good governance and democratisation and respect for human rights.'' He added that sustainable peace also requires changing ''the subjective conditions that breed conflict, our beliefs and our prejudices, by cultivating the values of tolerance and understanding, in short, the culture of peace, in our mindsets.'' Mr Chowdhury emphasised the role of film and other forms of art in promoting dialogue and understanding and galvanising action in support of the victims of natural and manmade disasters. He urged filmmakers to focus more purposefully on those in distress, the poor and the marginalised in society.

The festival, sponsored by the City of Beppu, Friends of the UN and the Global Peace Film Committee, was dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the United Nations and the Decade for the Culture of Peace.

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