Egypt calls for setting up ‘global water info system’
NEW YORK: Egyptian Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Hany Swailem called for establishing a global water information system contributing to climate action and disaster risk reduction. Speaking at the UN Water Conference, Swailem asserted the need to build on the outputs of the UN Climate Change Summit (COP 27) hosted by Egypt in Sharm el-Sheikh last year.
Swailem was speaking during the closing session of the Water Conference in New York, reviewing the results of the interactive dialogue on “Water for Climate, Resilience, and Environment: Source to Sea, Biodiversity, Climate, Resilience and DRR,” which was held under the Egyptian-Japanese joint presidency. The Egyptian minister discussed the main challenges and measures facing water and climate issues, warning that interactive dialogue concluded with several recommendations following the global water scarcity due to climate change and the resulting negative multidimensional consequences on human needs.
Swailem outlined several recommendations, including maintaining the frameworks for integrated water resources management policies and linking them to other frameworks related to environmental systems and the socioeconomic dimensions associated with them. He also called for a global water information system contributing to climate action and limiting water resources.
Egypt fears its share of the Nile water will be affected by the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) that Ethiopia has been building since 2011 on the river’s main tributary. The session also included other recommendations, including mobilizing funds, facilitating their allocation to the water sector and climate-resilient measures, and ensuring cost-effective implementation.
It also asserted the importance of having a mechanism to follow up the actions and commitments resulting from the UN Water Conference as a significant step to achieve tangible progress in water and climate in the coming years. Meanwhile, the UN Sec-Gen, Antonio Guterres, called for a change of course in managing this valuable common resource amid the global shortage.
Guterres stressed that “water needs to be at the center of the global political agenda” because of its impact on health, sanitation, hygiene, disease prevention, peace, sustainable development, fighting poverty, supporting food systems, and creating jobs and prosperity.
“All of humanity’s hopes for the future depend, in some way, on charting a new science-based course to bring the Water Action Agenda to life. They depend on realizing the game-changing, inclusive, and action-oriented commitments that Member States and others made at this Conference,” he said.
Guterres stressed that now is the time to act after he strongly criticized the “excessive consumption” and the resulting climate crisis. Non-governmental organizations, governments, and the private sector have made about 700 commitments in this unprecedented conference since 1977, including constructing latrines and reviving 300,000 km of deteriorating rivers.
The three-day conference, which hosted ten thousand attendees, pleaded for Guterres to appoint a UN special envoy for water, which the secretary-general says is under consideration.
In 2020, two billion people were still deprived of safe, fresh water, while 3.6 billion lacked “safely managed sanitation,” including 494 million defecating in the open air, according to the latest figures collected by the UN Committee on Water Resources. Climate experts at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change believe that about half of the world’s population suffers from “severe” water shortages for at least one period of the year.