The project on urban pollution of surficial and groundwater aquifers in Africa is a joint activity developed in collaboration between UNEP, as the lead agency of the project and UNESCO, as partner for the implementation of the project. Furthermore, the project was realized, in collaboration with UNCHS/Habitat (UNCHS/Habitat is actually implementing a project on Water for African cities which includes six African cities) and ECA who have been involved as regional and political partners. The project proposal supports the UNEP freshwater assessment activities in order to provide training and relevant information as well as suitable data for arid and semi-arid countries in an area of crucial importance in terms of freshwater resources management.

In this issue of World Resources, we focus on environmental governance—the processes and institutions we use to make decisions about the environment. Our four organizations endorse the Monterrey Consensus, which contains clear commitments to good governance, and challenge the international community to bring that mandate to bear on the crucial area of managing ecosystems and natural resources, both locally and globally. Our decades of experience dealing with environmental problems in rich and poor countries have shown time and again that good governance is crucial for the sustainable management of ecosystems, which are a key underpinning of sustainable economic growth and human development. The building blocks of good environmental governance are the access principles, first spelled out in 1992 in the Rio Declaration—the official document of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration calls for access to information concerning the environment, the opportunity to participate in the decision-making process, and effective access to judicial and administrative proceedings. But these principles are only as strong as our implementation of them.