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WATER COOPERATION, SUSTAINABILITY AND POVERTY ERADICATIONSuez Environnement’s contribution towater cooperation issues: the case of AlgiersJean-Louis Chaussade, CEO, Suez EnvironnementToday, more than one billion people still do not have accessto drinking water and 2.5 billion live without basic sanitation.For many years, Suez Environnement has workedto address the challenge of providing sustainable access to waterand sanitation services, and has supported policy makers inachieving this goal.Suez Environnement strongly believes in the “human right to waterand sanitation,” and welcomes the decision made by the UnitedNations General Assembly in 2010 to recognize access to drinkingwater and sanitation as a fundamental human right. Moreover, thegroup is fully behind the Millennium Development Goals, a resolutionadopted in September 2000 by the member states of the UN,which seeks, among other things, to halve the number of peoplewithout access to drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015.Since 1990, Suez Environnement has been involvedin facilitating access to drinking water and sanitationfacilities around the world. Through the ‘Water for all’programme, Suez Environnement has used its expertiseto help implement innovative solutions that are adaptedto specific regional situations and co-developed with thepopulations and the local authorities concerned. So far,the group has given access to drinking water to an additional12.8 million people and given access to sanitationto 6.6 million people.To achieve this success, Suez Environnementencourages the establishment of public-private partnershipsto enlist the help of local stakeholders andfind suitable solutions to the challenges and problemsthey face. In line with this, the group facilitatesImage: Suez Environnement, Krista BoggsToday, 100 per cent of the water that is distributed in Algiers is drinkable and available 24/7[ 233 ]