The World Health Organization (WHO) and Singapore's government signed an agreement on Wednesday to jointly promote the safe management of drinking water around the world, DPA reported. The city-state is an "exemplary model of integrated water management and WHO hopes to work closely with Singapore to share such expertise," said Susanne Weber-Mosdorf, WHO's assistant director general for sustainable development and healthy environments. Singapore has overcome its water challenges through a diversified supply strategy with sources from local catchments, imported from Malaysia, recycled water and desalinated water. "It is our collective responsibility to address the devastating effects of declining water quality," said Weber-Mosdorf in a statement released in Singapore. The signing ceremony took place in Stockholm, Sweden. "Proper water management is ever more crucial in those places where little water is available," she said. "With freshwater resources strongly affected by, and vulnerable to, climate change, finding solutions to these challenges becomes all the more pressing." The agreement was signed by Tan Yong Soon, permanent secretary of Singapore's environment ministry, and Weber-Mosdorf. Under the pact which runs until 2015, the WHO will work with Singapore to disseminate knowledge to developing states on the procedures for the safe use of wastewater, intra-urban water catchment management; the desalination and advanced treatment of waste and seawater for drinking. More than 1.1 billion people lack access to safe water worldwide, WHO said. Every year more than 1.6 million people die because they lack access to safe water and sanitation.