What does that mean for development cooperation and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)?
Water-resource management should figure more prominently in development cooperation. After all, water management is more than just resource protection. Our project in Namibia shows that new wastewater treatment methods can do more than just reduce supply shortages. They lower water-supply operating costs, energy consumption and health costs. In addition, more farmland can be irrigated, so incomes are generated and poverty goes down. In this sense, good water-resource management makes a fundamental contribution to achieving the MDGs relating to health and poverty. Development cooperation should focus much more on programmes that deliver on multiple MDGs. What is most urgent? We need to start at home. At present, there are no reference projects in Germany that would serve as shining examples. We have the technology in Germany, and the expertise for crafting new innovative solutions, but we still use conventional large-scale treatment facilities. In the ISOE Networks project, we have int
