Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)
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Question 122: To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs if the Government, through its overseas aid programmes, plans to support water conservation projects in view of the worldwide threat to water table levels. [24045/04]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The Government's development co-operation programme seeks in particular to address the priority needs of our partner countries. Water features prominently in many of our partners' poverty reduction strategies. It is the key to good health, agricultural and industrial productivity, food security and, ultimately, poverty reduction. On the other hand, lack of water is a threat facing a large proportion of the world's population, with 5 billion people expected to suffer from water scarcity by 2025. The millennium development goals include the target of halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation by 2015.

Against this background, the Government's development programme attaches a very high importance to water resource management to satisfy the varying ecological, social and economic needs of our partner countries. Accordingly, Ireland contributes substantial funds to the water sector through bilateral and multilateral channels. Bilateral assistance to our programme countries in the water and sanitation sector, for instance, increased from €6 million in 2000 to just over €12 million in 2003.

Three practical examples of Development Co-operation Ireland's activities are as follows. First, integrated watershed management programmes in Ethiopia have resulted in community-led restoration and management of the relevant water catchment areas, with significant environmental and economic benefits. Improved land management through hillside terracing and gulley stabilisation has resulted in the replenishment of aquifers and a rise in the water table, bringing abandoned shallow wells back into use. This has permitted the development of new income-generating activities such as bee-keeping and vegetable gardening, with positive impacts on nutrition and livelihoods.

Second, under the water resources action programme, Ireland is assisting the Zambian Government to prepare an updated institutional framework that will promote the development and management of water resources in a sustainable manner.

Third, the Government contributes €500,000 per annum to the International Water Management Institute, IWMI. Irrigation accounts for 70% of all water used in developing countries. Based in Sri Lanka, IWMI is a scientific research organisation which works in 21 developing countries, pioneering improved water resource management through more efficient approaches such as drip irrigation.

During our recent Presidency of the European Union, Ireland played a pivotal role in bringing the European Development Fund programme known as the "European Union Water Facility" to a successful outcome. The water facility will finance access to clean water and sanitation as well as improved water resources management for the countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific regions. The facility, originally proposed by President Prodi in 2003, has funds available to it of up to €500 million in the first phase, with an additional €500 million possible in the subsequent phase, subject to member states' approval.