Opening Remarks by Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary-General Book
Launch for the Horizontal Water Programme, 16 March 2010, Paris,
France Thank you for being here and contributing to the OECD
Water Programme. I am deeply convinced that good water
management is important for a stronger, cleaner and fairer
economy. And we face some urgency. If we don’t do anything,
almost half of the world’s population will live in areas of
severe water stress in 2030, while climate change will only
exacerbate these trends. So, clearly, business as usual is not
an option. To face this challenge, the OECD focuses its efforts
on the policy and institutional responses on pricing, financing
infrastructure and sustainable management of water resources.
Today, we release three major publications on water. The first
one focuses on “Pricing Water Resources and Water and Sanitation
Services”. It shows that households and industry in many
countries increasingly pay the true cost of the water they
consume. However, tariffs vary significantly a