国务卿克林顿为纪念世界水日发表讲话
2012.03.22
国务卿希拉里•克林顿
Secretary Clinton’s Remarks on World Water Day
22 March 2012
We are all here because we know ensuring that everyone has the clean water they need to live and thrive has to be a high priority for all of us. When I spoke on World Water Day two years ago, I talked about how water is clearly integral to many of our foreign policy goals. When nearly 2 million people die each year from preventable waterborne disease, clean water is critical if we’re going to be talking about achieving our global health goals. Something as simple as better access to water and sanitation can improve the quality of life and reduce the disease burden for billions of people. When women and girls don’t have to spend 200 million hours a day seeking water, maybe they can go to school, maybe they can have more opportunities to help bring income in to the family. Reliable access to water is essential for feeding the hungry, running the industries that promote jobs, generating the energy that fuels national growth, and certainly, it is central when we think about how climate change will affect future generations.
我们聚集在这里，因为我们知道确保每个人获得生存和富足所必需的清洁水是我们的一项重要任务。两年前，我在世界水日发表谈话时，曾提到水与我们许多外交政策的目标具有密不可分的关系。鉴于每年都有将近200万人死于可以预防的水媒病，如果我们想要讨论如何达成全球的卫生目标，清洁水就是其中的关键。诸如增进取水便利和卫生设备等简单举措就能改善亿万人的生活质量并且减轻疾病负担。当妇女和女童不必每天花费两亿个小时去取水，也许她们就能去上学，或者有机会为家庭赚取收入。可靠的水源对于减少饥饿、发展创造就业机会的行业、推动经济增长所需的能源，都是不可或缺的。在我们思考气候变化对子孙后代的影响时，它也是一个核心要素。
Now, we are pursuing this not only because we care about it around the world; we care about it here at home. We’ve had increasing problems meeting our own needs in the Desert Southwest or managing floods in the East. No country anywhere, no matter how developed, is immune to the challenges that we face. So we’ve been working steadily across multiple fronts to make progress on our comprehensive complex water agenda, and I’d like to update you today.
我们探究此一议题，不只因为我们关注它在全球各地造成的影响，还因为它在我们国内造成的影响。美国西南部沙漠地区的水源短缺和东部地区的洪灾都给我们带来日益严重的问题。不论一个国家位于何处，也不论它多么发达，都无法幸免我们面临的挑战。因此，我们在多方面坚持努力，以便在全面而复杂的水议程上取得进展。今天我想与各位谈谈一些最新情况。
Since I signed our government-wide agreement with the World Bank last year, we have identified 30 activities where various U.S. agencies can work more closely with the World Bank and with each other to improve our individual efforts on water security. USAID and NASA are working together using earth science and satellite technology to analyze water security and other water-related challenges in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. We’re working with the international community on the Sanitation and Water for All Partnership, which is designed to help countries where access to water remains a critical barrier to growth, to build political commitment and capacity to begin solving their own problems.
自从去年我与世界银行（World Bank）签署涵盖整个政府的协议后，我们已经确定了30项美国各个机构可以与世界银行以及彼此之间更密切协作的活动，以改善不同部门在水安全方面的努力。美国国际开发署和美国宇航局（NASA）正在联手运用地球科学和卫星技术，来分析中东、北非和南亚的水安全和其他与水有关的挑战。我们正在与国际社会一起推动“人人享有卫生设备与水伙伴关系”（Sanitation and Water for All Partnership），它旨在帮助水源短缺仍然对经济增长构成主要障碍的国家，加强他们解决本国问题的政治意愿和能力。
And USAID recently launched the WASH – W-A-S-H – the WASH for Life partnership with the Gates Foundation. It’s a very fitting acronym – Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, or WASH. This project will identify, test, and scale up evidence-based approaches for delivering these services to people in some of the poorest regions of the world.
最近，美国国际开发署与盖茨基金会(Gates Foundation)共同发起了“生命之水行动”（WASH for Life）伙伴关系。这是一个非常贴切的首字母缩写－－代表水、环境卫生和个人卫生，简称WASH。该项目将发现、测试和推广业经证明有效的方法，把这些服务提供给世界上一些最贫穷地区的人们。
So let’s look at one example about how all of this comes together. In Haiti, you know the terrible problems that occurred because of the cholera epidemic, which was imported from the outside. Well, USAID’s programs are helping to prevent the further spread of waterborne diseases such as cholera. We are supporting a range of programs to improve health, from increasing access to safe drinking water, to promoting regular hand-washing and other practices. We are also helping farmers use water more efficiently, protecting Haiti’s watersheds, a critical source of water, and rehabilitating irrigation systems that provide water to as much as 15,000 hectares of crops so that Haiti can once again become a regional agricultural exporter. We have planted thousands of trees to reinforce riverbanks and to help prevent flooding, which has saved lives and protected property throughout Haiti’s productive plains.
所以让我们通过一个例子看一下所有这些努力如何发挥协调作用。在海地，你们都知道从外地传入的霍乱流行而引发的种种可怕的问题。美国国际开发署的项目正在帮助防止霍乱之类的水媒病进一步传播。我们正在支持各种各样增进健康的项目，从增加供应安全的饮用水到提倡经常洗手和其他措施。我们还在帮助农民提高用水效率，保护海地的集水区，这是一项重要的水资源，并且整修为多达15,000公顷的作物提供水源的灌溉系统，使海地能够再次成为该地区的农业出口国。我们种植了成千上万的树木来加固河岸，预防洪灾，在海地肥沃的平原地带拯救了生命，保护了财产。
Now, this kind of work and that of so many other examples I could give you is paying off. Last week, the UN announced that we met the Millennium Development Goal to cut in half the proportion of people living without access to safe drinking water, and we reached it almost four years ahead of schedule. There aren’t many of the MDG’s that we’ve actually achieved, so the fact that we’ve achieved this one is, I think, not only good in and of itself, but should serve as a spur on others as well. We know it not only translates into better lives, but it proves the international community, when focused and working together, can actually achieve goals that are set.
现在，这项努力以及我可以举出的许多其他实例都在见成效。上周，联合国宣布，我们实现了把生活在没有安全饮水地区的人口比例减少一半的千年发展目标（Millennium Development Goal），我们比原计划提前了将近4年达到目标。我们真正实现的千年发展目标不是很多，因此，我认为，我们实现了这个目标不仅本身可喜，而且应该成为对其他目标的一种鞭策。我们知道，这不仅带来了生活的改善，而且也证明，国际社会，如果集中力量，共同努力，确实可以达到预定目标。
But with the news of this accomplishment, we’re reminded about how much more we have yet to do. At this rate, nearly 700 million people will lack access to safe drinking water in 2015. And many countries still are not making enough progress reaching their most vulnerable populations, and those conditions will only deteriorate as populations grow and crowd into already overcrowded cities without adequate infrastructure.
但是，这一成就也提醒我们，仍然有多少工作有待完成。以这样的速度，将有近7亿人在2015年得不到安全饮水。许多国家仍然没有在帮助最脆弱的群体方面取得足够进展，随着人口的增长，大批人拥入没有充分基础设施的过分拥挤的城市，这些情况只会更加恶化。
Last year, I called on the intelligence community to conduct a global assessment of the impact water could have and was having on our national security. Today, the National Intelligence Council released the unclassified version of its report on Global Water Security. You can go online, read it for yourself, see how imperative clean water and access to water is to future peace, security, and prosperity, globally. I think it’s fair to say the intelligence community’s findings are sobering.
去年，我要求情报界在全球评估一下水资源可能和正在对我们的国家安全造成的影响。今天，国家情报委员会（National Intelligence Council)公布了关于全球水安全（Global Water Security）报告的非机密部分的内容。大家可以到网上自己读，看看清洁水和享有水资源对全球未来的和平、安全和繁荣是多么重要。我认为可以恰当地说，情报界的结论发人深省。
As the world’s population continues to grow, demand for water will go up, but our freshwater supplies will not keep pace. In some places, the water tables are already more depleted than we had thought. In northern India, for example, over-extraction of groundwater could impact food security and access to water for millions of people. Some countries will face severe shortages within decades or even sooner. And some hydrologists predict that many wells in Yemen will run dry in as little as 10 years.
随着世界人口的持续增长，对水的需求会增加，但我们的淡水供应将无法跟上。在一些地方，地下水位已经比我们想象得更低。例如，在印度北部，过度开采地下水可能会给数百万人的粮食保障和用水造成影响。一些国家在几十年或更短的时间内将面临严重缺水。一些水文学家预测，也门的许多水井将在短短10年内干涸。
The assessment also highlights the potential threat that water resources could be targeted by terrorists or manipulated as a political tool. These difficulties will all increase the risk of instability within and between states. Within states, they could cause some states to fail outright. And between and among states, you could see regional conflicts among states that share water basins be exacerbated and even lead to violence. So these threats are real and they do raise serious security concerns.
这个评估还特别指出了潜在的威胁，即水资源会成为恐怖主义分子的目标或被用来作为一种政治工具。这些困难都可能给国家内部和国家之间造成更大的不稳定。在国家内部，它们可能会导致一些国家崩溃。在国与国之间，人们有可能看到共享水源流域的国家间的冲突加剧，甚至导致暴力。因此，这些威胁是真实的，确实引起严重的安全担忧。
This assessment is a landmark document that puts water security in its rightful place as part of national security, and I’d like to thank everyone involved in helping to produce it. It is also a call for American leadership in this area. Our domestic experiences with water and our technical expertise are valued around the world. And as countries become more water stressed or nations face water-related crises, they are increasingly turning to the United States for assistance. We hear this all the time at embassies everywhere. Local leaders meet with our ambassadors and ask, “What did you do in the United States? How did you do it? Can you help us?”
这个评估是一个具有里程碑意义的文件，把水安全作为国家安全的一个方面放在了应有的位置，我要感谢每一位帮助完成这项评估的人。这也是对美国要在这方面发挥领导作用的召唤。我们国内的治水经验和我们的技术专长受到世界各地的重视。随着一些国家遇到越来越大的缺水问题，一些国家面临与水有关的危机，它们越来越多地向美国寻求帮助。我们各地的大使馆常常听到这种说法。地方领导人与我们的大使会面时问：“你们在美国是怎样做的？你们用什么方法？你们能帮助我们吗？
Well, today, we are launching a new public-private partnership to help answer that call for leadership and to expand the impact of America’s work on water. The U.S. Water Partnership exemplifies the unity of effort and expertise we will need to address these challenges over the coming years, and it advances our work in three critical ways.
那么今天，我们要推出一个新的政府和民间的伙伴关系，帮助响应那个召唤，发挥带头作用，扩大美国水管理工作的影响。美国水问题伙伴关系（U.S. Water Partnership）体现了我们在未来岁月里应对这些挑战所需要的一致努力和专业知识，它将从三个关键方面推进我们的工作。
First, it brings together a diverse range of partners from the private sector, the philanthropic community, the NGOs, academics, experts, and government. This approach will help catalyze new opportunities for cooperation. For example, if Coca-Cola has the best data on available water supplies, and the Army Corps of Engineers has the capacity to advise on how to build water delivery systems, and the Nature Conservancy knows how to minimize the disruption to the environment, then we want everybody sharing information and delivering clean water in a sustainable way to communities in need.
首先，它汇集了民营企业、慈善机构、非政府组织、学术界、专家和政府等广泛的合作伙伴。这样做将有助于产生新的合作机会。例如，如果可口可乐公司（Coca-Cola）拥有水资源供应的最佳数据，陆军工程兵团（Army Corps of Engineers）能够为兴建供水系统提供最佳咨询，而自然保护协会（Nature Conservancy）知道如何最大限度地减少对环境的影响，那么我们希望大家分享信息，以可持续的方式向缺水社区提供清洁用水。
Breaking down silos, barriers, obstacles has been one of my goals as Secretary of State, within our own government, with multilateral institutions, and between and among governments. Bringing people with varied water experience and expertise together will also force us to look for system-wide solutions. Now, you can’t work on water as a health concern independently from water as an agricultural concern, and water that is needed for agriculture may also be water that is needed for energy production. So we need to be looking for interventions that work on multiple levels simultaneously and help us focus on systemic responses.
担任国务卿期间，打破各自为政的局面，消除我国政府内部、与多边机构和外国政府之间的壁垒和障碍始终是我努力去实现的目标之一。将富有水资源管理经验和专长的人员集中起来还将促使我们寻找系统性解决方案。不能把水仅仅作为一个健康问题或农业问题分别处理，农业需要的水也可能就是能源生产需要的水。因此，我们必须寻找可以在多个层面同时产生效果的干预办法，帮助我们把重点放在综合应对措施方面。
Now, of course, while water is a global problem, solutions happen at the local level. So the second goal of the U.S. Water Partnership is to make all this American knowledge and expertise accessible. The U.S. Water Web Portal will provide a single entry point to our data, best practices, and training to help empower people taking on these problems in their own communities. And it will help build international support for American approaches, technologies, companies, government agencies, our whole universe of experts standing ready to assist
当然，虽然水是一个全球性问题，但解决办法则在地方产生。因此，美国水问题伙伴关系计划的第二个目标是使美国的所有这些知识和经验能够为人们所用。美国水资源门户网站（U.S. Water Web Portal）将把各类资源汇聚一处，便于人们使用我们的资料、最佳规范和培训计划，以增强他们的自身能力，解决各自社区的问题。它将争取对美国方案的国际支持——我们的技术、公司、政府机构、各类专家随时准备提供支持。
Finally, because this is a public-private venture, the U.S. Water Partnership will not depend on any one government agency or any one private organization to keep it going. The State Department is proud to be a founding partner, but we also hope that the partnership will spawn many new projects that may or may not involve us. The Water Partnership has built-in flexibility to address the world’s changing water needs and to continue our work to find sustainable solutions.
最后，由于这是一个政府与民间的合作项目，因此美国水资源伙伴关系计划的持续运作不会依赖任何一个政府机构或一个民营组织。国务院为能够成为一个创始伙伴而感到自豪，然而我们希望，这一伙伴关系将催生新的项目——不管有没有我们的参与。水资源伙伴关系有着内在灵活性，能够应对世界不断变化的水资源需求，并能够使我们寻找可持续解决方案的努力得到延续。
In brief, we believe this will help map out our route to a more water secure world: a world where no one dies from water-related diseases; where water does not impede social or economic development; and where no war is ever fought over water.
简而言之，我们相信这将有助于为我们实现供水更安全的世界规划我们的路径：一个谁也不会因与水相关的疾病而丧生的世界；一个水问题不会阻碍社会或经济发展的世界；一个不再为争夺水资源发生战争的世界。
I have said before that no resource defines this planet more than water. I mean, look at those great pictures from the Hubble telescope, or even just look at a globe, and you see all that blue. And we know how absolutely essential it is to life. We’re still wondering whether did Mars ever have water? What do those craters on other planets actually mean? And it is though not only life-sustaining, it is – and we have argued this from the beginning of our involvement and commitment – an essential ingredient of global peace, stability, and security.
我曾说过，没有任何资源比水更能彰显我们这个星球的特性。我的意思是，如果你看一看来自哈勃望远镜的那些绝妙的图像，或只是看一看一个星球，你就会看到一片蓝色。我们知道水对生命如何必不可少。我们仍然很想知道火星上是否曾经有过水？其他行星上的那些凹陷到底说明了什么？水不仅可维持生命，而且我们从一开始参与与水相关的问题和作出承诺时就说，水对全球和平、稳定与安全也是一个必不可少的组成部分。
We have been working the diplomatic level with a number of countries to bring into higher relief some of the water challenges they are, or will be, facing. Back in 2009, we began something called the Lower Mekong Initiative, where we brought together countries that are in the Lower Mekong region, and began to meet with them and talk with them and provide expertise to them, and create linkage with the Mississippi River Basin in order to raise understanding and visibility about these issues. And it’s been fascinating to watch over the three years that we’ve met – we’ll have a fourth meeting at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Cambodia in July – how the level of interest has grown and the willingness to tackle some of the hard problems and also the political will to raise some tough questions with others – other nations through which the Mekong travels.
我们在外交层面上与一些国家合作，进一步展现他们现在和将会面临的水问题构成的一些挑战。早在2009年，我们就启动了湄公河下游倡议（Lower Mekong initiative）的项目，将位于湄公河地区的国家聚集在一起，开始与他们会面、讨论，向他们提供专门知识并建立了与密西西比河流域（Mississippi River Basin）的联系，提高对这些问题的了解和受关注的程度。在我们举行会议的三年期间——我们将于7月在柬埔寨东盟地区论坛（ASEAN Regional Forum）期间举行第四次会议——看到人们的关心程度、解决某些艰难问题的意愿以及与其他国家——湄公河流经的其他国家——一起提出一些难题的政治意愿如何得到提高，这些都非常令人振奋。
This is not something that will immediately, directly affect the United States. We are a long way away after all. But it will affect the climate; it will affect the quality of life; it will affect the tensions among and between nations, which could very well then have follow-on effects that we would have to respond to. So there’s a lot that is connected that may not appear so at first glance, but which a little tiny bit of digging and reflection illustrates how important this issue is for each and every one of us.
这不是一个会立即、直接影响到美国的问题。我们毕竟距离遥远。但这个问题会影响气候，影响生活质量，影响国与国之间的紧张关系，随后极可能会造成我们将不得不作出回应的后续影响。其中存在很多相互关联的地方，有最初也许看不出来，但只要稍加考虑和思索就能发现这个问题对我们每一个人是多么重要。
So we think it actually is our duty and responsibility to make sure that this water issue stays at the very top of America’s foreign policy and national security agenda. We’ve proven we can make progress, but we know we have a lot more work to do. So I hope on this World Water Day we rededicate ourselves to that hard work and to being innovative and creative, using the new tools that we’re announcing today to bring people together in our own country, across our own government, and all the constituencies that care about water, working closely with leaders like the congressmen in the Congress, to continue to be on the cutting edge of helping to solve the problems that are posed to so many millions of people everywhere in the world, including here at home.
It’s exciting that it’s not only about water. It is about security, peace, and prosperity as well. Thank you all very much. (Applause.)
因此，我们认为，确保关于水的问题始终被置于美国外交政策和国家安全议程的重要位置实际上是我们的义务和责任。我们已经证明我们可以取得进展，但我们知道我们还有很多工作要做。因此，值此世界水日到来之际，我希望我们重申致力于这项艰巨工作的决心，发挥创新精神和创造性，利用我们今天宣布的新手段，要求我们本国人民、我们政府的各部门和所有关心水问题的支持者齐心协力，与国会议员等领导人物密切合作，继续站在第一线，为解决世界各地亿万人民及我们本国人民面临的这些问题贡献力量。
令人振奋的是，这不仅仅是水的问题，也关系到安全、和平与繁荣。
非常感谢大家
天之聪教育
2012-08-17
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