Human Development &
Capability Association

Water in developing countries (DCs) is now at the heart of the concerns of policy makers and the international community. The recent World Water Forum, held in Mexico in March 2006, emphasized the seriousness of the problem of access to water for all as the human, health and social derived from them are considerable. The second UN report on water (2006), shared that 20 percent of the world's population had no access to drinking water and 40% did not have a sanitation base. It is an obvious phenomenon that, water is closely linked to health. Poor water quality can cause many diseases. According to the report, more than five million people die each year from diseases caused by water unfit for human consumption: 90 percent of these victims are children under five years old. This alarming situation particularly affects populations in developing countries where the problem of water is mainly due to population growth, urbanization and uncontrolled development of irrigated agriculture. Faced with this situation, the international community pledged to halve, between 2000 and 2015, the proportion of people without access to drinking water and has therefore provided a major impetus to the actions of solidarity in access to drinking water and sanitation. For example, in France, since 1992, local authorities had a legal and regulatory framework that enabled them to promote cooperative relationships with communities in developing countries. These programs are known as "decentralized cooperation". More generally, decentralized cooperation refers to any form of partnership set up in developing countries by an actor in civil society. Decentralized cooperation programs ensure synergies between different actors and they promote the processes of widely participatory action. Civil society thus becomes involved in the definition and implementation of cooperation projects. This new vision of cooperation provides a new impetus to the policy of international cooperation as it allows overcoming the limitations of conventional bilateral and multilateral cooperation between North and South.