(STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN) The Stockholm Water Foundation today announced that the 10th Stockholm Water Prize has been awarded to Professor Kader Asmal, current Minister of Education and formerly Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry in South Africa. In its motivation, the Foundation's nominating committee wrote:

Professor Kader Asmal, Minister of Education in the Republic of South Africa, is awarded the 2000 Stockholm Water Prize in recognition of his unprecedented efforts in the development of vision, legislation and practice in the field of water management in South Africa.

Professor Asmal - a noted human rights scholar, teacher and activist who also serves as chairman of the World Commission on Dams (WCD) - has long been held in high esteem internationally. But it is for his unprecedented efforts in the field of water management in South Africa that he will receive the $150,000 Stockholm Water Prize.

After his important contributions to the drafting of the South African Constitution, Professor Asmal in 1994 became Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry in President Nelson Mandela's Government of National Unity. In this position Professor Asmal was responsible for developing an action plan to solve the country's large water problems. In spearheading a fundamental overhaul of water management policy and practice doing so, Professor Asmal went back to his roots, ensuring that policies and practices were anchored in human rights, social justice and environmental sustainability.

Professor Asmal pioneered major reforms in water legislation such as the National Water Act of 1998. The country's water is no longer being used as it was in the apartheid era as a political tool to fuel racial divisions and segregation. He also instituted far-reaching initiatives such as the Working for Water Program, Community Water Supply and Sanitation Program and National Water Conservation Campaign.

The National Water Act has been hailed as the most "comprehensive and visionary" in the world. Among its key provisions were the "water reserve" concept that puts human needs and basic ecological functioning before the interests of commercial or industrial uses; "water- use rights," which means water use is paid for on a sliding scale (major water users such as industry and agriculture pay more, and the poor pay what they can afford); and an acknowledgement that South Africa has a duty to ensure that neighboring states have an equitable share of water from shared rivers.

At the time of his ministerial appointment, more than 16 million South Africans did not have reasonable access to safe drinking water, and some 20 million lacked access to safe sanitation. Today, the situation is changed drastically, with some four million people having benefited directly through water provision close to their homes, and another three million benefiting through access at schools, clinics and work places.

The Community Water Supply and Sanitation Program, which focuses on providing access to the basic levels of service required to assure health for all South Africans, has employed some 300,000 people, more than half of whom were women. By the end of 1998, the Working for Water Program was employing 24,000 people in over 300 projects across the country. Their task was to clear invading alien plants (species) that robbed South Africa of up to seven percent of its mean annual runoff, overtook its most productive lands and threatened its biological diversity.

Professor Asmal's impressive accomplishments to achieve an equitable water situation in South Africa through legislation and development programs have garnered notice outside of the country's borders. They have among others resulted in his appointment as chairman for the World Commission on Dams, an independent organization developed by both proponents and opponents of large dams. The commission's goal is to develop international ethics and guidelines for all parties interested in the building, operating and closing large dams. Today, there are more than 40,000 large dams (more than 15 meters high) in the world. Internationally, the WCD's work, to be reported later this year, will have a far-reaching influence on the dams debate, water utilization and sustainable development in general. 

The Stockholm Water Prize, founded in 1990, is presented annually to an institution, organization, individual or company that has made a substantial contribution to the preservation, enhancement or availability of the world's water resources. The Prize recognizes outstanding research, action or education that increases knowledge of water as a resource and protects its usability for all life.

HM King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden will present the Stockholm Water Prize at a ceremony during the World Water Week in Stockholm in August. Previous Laureates have come from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Great Britain, India, Israel, Japan, Switzerland and the United States and have represented a variety of disciplines.

Founders of the Stockholm Water Prize include Anglian Water, Aragon Fondkommission, Bacardi Limited, Compaq, General Motors, Grundfos, ITT Flygt, Kemira Kemwater, KPMG, Ragn-Sells, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), SNECMA, Stockholm Water Festival, Swedish State Railways (SJ), Uponor Group and the Water Environment Federation.