€1bl water fund planned

The European Commission pledged yesterday to set aside €1 billion to help poor states get access to fresh water, but a charity group expressed worries that bureaucratic delays could hold up the project.

Water is easily accessible in the developed world, but in poor countries millions of people die each year from diseases related to contaminated drinking water and poor sanitation.

The Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, said it would propose the fund to EU states and countries from Africa and the Caribbean and Pacific region, which would be the beneficiaries of the money.

"Water is the key to life on earth and far too many people are forced to eke out a living without safe supplies of this most basic resource," said Commission President Romano Prodi.

The EU executive said in a statement that the fund would help finance water and sanitation projects and provide technical assistance to governments.

Getting clean water to more people is one of the targets set by the United Nations in its millennium development goals, along with halving the number of people in poverty by 2015.

But British charity Oxfam said the Commission had announced grand aid projects in the past only for the funds to be tied up in bureaucratic wrangling for years.

"In principle, we are pretty welcoming to the Commission's proposal," said Oxfam's head of EU advocacy, Jo Leadbeater.

"That said, the concern we have with this initiative is that the money has to be put on the table."

A spokesman for the European Commission said the EU executive would aim to take steps to make sure the money for water projects was released in a timely manner, including proposing the idea of an executive agency to run the fund and provide for speedy decision-making.