German Minister for Environment Juergen Trittin said Thursday the United Nations is on target to halve the number of 1.1 billion people around the world without access to safe drinking water. The ambitious programme is among what are known as Millennium Development Goals adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 2000, committing governments to achieve specific development targets by 2015. Those goals include access to water and sanitation, halt the spread of HIV/AIDS, improve education and reduce infant and maternal mortality. "For water, we are on track," Trittin told the German Press Agency dpa. "But for sanitation, we are behind the target." Trittin was attending a week-long conference on sustainable development at U.N. headquarters in New York. Scores of countries sent high-ranking officials to discuss whether the millennium goals were being met and the 191-nation assembly plans to meet in September to review the progress. Trittin said Germany has been contributing yearly 350 million euro to programmes to bring fresh water to people who have no access to it around the world. But he said provisions of fresh water should not be free because they would lead to waste. He said funding water programmes should be accompanied also by good governance. ---SP 0102 Local Time 2202 GMT
