President Jacob Zuma unveiled the United Nation's (UN's) broad-based plan to provide water and sanitation for 10 billion people by 2030 on Wednesday.

Zuma was part of the UN's high level panel on water and sanitation.

He was speaking at the World Water Day Summit in Durban.

Zuma said the panel would further commit to adopt a political declaration for the rollout by member states, in particular African countries.

Briefing journalists at the 2012 UN conference on sustainable development, Zuma said all member states had recommitted to the human right of safe drinking water and sanitation, and recognised that water was at the core of sustainable development.

"Following this commitment, the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council called upon countries to give appropriate consideration to the importance of [the human right of] safe drinking water and sanitation and the principle of quality and non-discrimination. This is therefore one of the reasons why the high level panel will today unveil the initiation on access to water and sanitation for 10-billion people," he said.

Zuma then called Water and Sanitation Minister Nomvula Mokonyane to read the panel's joint statement for World Water Day.

"If the world continues on its current path, projections suggest that the world may face a 40% shortfall in water availability by 2030, affecting at least 1.8-billion people," the statement read.

The panel pledged to work closely and collaboratively with all stakeholders to ensure that the water related targets of the 2030 agenda and beyond were achieved, said the statement.