New Delhi, March 22:

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) plans to double water sector investment in the Asia Pacific region, including India, to over $2 billion annually in the next five years to achieve the millennium development goals.

According to plans announced yesterday by the Manila-based multilateral agency at the ongoing fourth World Water Forum in Mexico, “This new water financing programme will greatly increase ADB’s water investments for 2006-2010, which could grow to well over $2 billion annually. This would make water a core business area of ADB’s operations.” In addition to ADB’s ongoing and planned programme of water investments in countries across the region, significant increases are expected in China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Vietnam, an official statement said.

As part of the programme, ADB will mobilise co-financing and investments from government clients, the private sector, and multilateral and bilateral partners. Higher levels of grant co-financing assistance are expected to support the programme through a range of modalities. Despite good progress made, the Asia Pacific region is still falling short of targets due to rapid population growth and greatly increased urbanisation, as well as low performance in delivering water services.

In 2002, about 700 million pe-ople in the region lacked access to safe water supply an-d some two billion lacked access to adequate sanitation — about 75 per cent of the world’s total. The MDGs has set a target of halving the proportion of people wi-thout safe drinking water and adequate sanitation by 2015.

“Investments in water are also crucial in meeting other targets such as those relating to the incidence of poverty, the proportion of the world’s poor who suffer from hunger, reducing child and maternal mortality, the incidence of major diseases and environmental sustainability,” said Geert van der Linden, ADB’s vice-president for Knowledge Management and Sustainable Development.

The Asia Water Watch 2015 study, commissioned by ADB together with UN agencies - WHO, UNDP and UNESCAP, estimates that annual investments of $8 billion would be needed over the next decade to meet MDG targets for safe drinking water and sanitation alone.

In addition, investments are needed in irrigation services, river basin management, flood management and mitigation, and wastewater management.