MONROVIA, April 9 (LINA) - President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has said that water is an essential source for growth and development and called for sustained partnership to ensure access to clean water globally.

Addressing the 2014 Global Water Awards Ceremony in Paris, France, the Liberian leader said governments and investors need a dialogue that will ensure private-public partnership that will ensure the availability and access to water globally, thus promoting investment and enhancing growth.

President Sirleaf said nearly one in ten people lack access to safe water and one in three is without access to basic sanitation, adding that this occurs mainly in developing countries.

She stressed that even though the end date of the Millennium Development Goals target to reduce by half the proportion of people with access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015 is almost met, nearly 350 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, which is about one-third of the continent’s population, will still be without safe water.

The Liberian leader also told the gathering of Water Ministers, Policy-makers, CEOs, Corporations and Technicians that an estimated 62 percent of the world’s population now has access to protected water sources such as pipe-borne water in the capital city, wells, boreholes and hand pumps, spring and harvested rainwater.

She told the over 600 participants at the program that though in Liberia there is plentiful water, the second highest rainfall in the world at more than 200 inches per annum, majority of Liberian children did not know pipe-borne water for drinking, hygiene or sanitation until the commencement of post-war recovery in 2003.

President Sirleaf said between 1990 and 2010, more than two million people gained access to basic drinking water, but added that almost 800 million people still remain without water, while some two billion people lack access to continuous, safe water and by 2025 will be living in places classified as water scarce.

She disclosed that water, as any investor knows, is not only for drinking but is also important for industries that utilize it in their production processes, such as beverages manufacturers, water bagging and bottling  companies, restaurants, hotels, textiles manufacturers, mining, value-added agriculture such as canning and juice-making, among others.

The president’s statement was contained in a press release from the Minister Counselor for Press and Public Affairs at Embassy of Liberia in Paris, France, a copy of which is in the possession of the Liberia News Agency.

LINA PSN/TSS/PTK