Monitoring target 10 and beyond : keeping track of water resources for the millennium development goals : an issues paper prepared for CSD 12

This issues paper makes recommendations concerning monitoring progress toward the MDGs, both in terms of the very specific domestic water supply and sanitation goals set out in Target 10 and the nature, quality, quantity and current and projected patterns of water resources for all the other MDGs. Instead of the conceptual framework and institutional mechanism for the monitoring of target 10, the international community does not have a conceptual framework for defining and measuring the contribution of water resources to progress towards the targets nor an institutional mechanism, based on this conceptual framework, for tracking progress. Whereas target 10 is in itself a measurable goal, water resources development and management is not an end in itself, but rather an input to broader efforts to attain the MDGs; to increase food production, reduce poverty and disease, protect ecosystems.
The four essential foundations on which a conceptual framework for monitoring water resources for all the MDGs should be build, are : 1) a framework for sorting out the multiple ways in which the development, management and use of water resources will impact on the MDGs, 2) a set of intermediate targets that relate the development, management and use of water resources to each of the key relevant MDG targets, 3) for each intermediate target, an analytical system to define and measure the target, 4) a system for monitoring the extent to which each countries vision of IWRM is translated into tailored solutions as a base for achieving the MDGs as a whole.