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Kingdom seeks global community’s help to address water crisis

UN launches 10-year action plan to overcome water scarcity challenge

By JT - Mar 24,2018 - Last updated at Mar 24,2018

AMMAN — Jordan has participated in the high-level meeting on water that was held at the UN headquarters in New York, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported on Saturday.

The UN on Thursday launched a 10-year water action plan that seeks to forge new partnerships, improve cooperation and strengthen capacity to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, according to the UN website.

The launch of the “International Decade for Action: Water for Sustainable Development, 2018-2028” coincides with the World Water Day, marked annually on March 22, to focus attention on the importance of and challenges facing freshwater availability.

Most directly linked to Sustainable Development Goal 6, safe water and adequate sanitation are indispensable for healthy ecosystems, reducing poverty and achieving inclusive growth, social well-being and sustainable livelihoods – the targets for many of the 17 Goals, the UN website added.

During the meeting attended by Water Minister Ali Ghezawi, on behalf of Prime Minister Hani Mulki, UN Secretary General António Guterres warned that more than 2 billion people worldwide lack access to safe water and over 4.5 billion to adequate sanitation services.

Stressing that water cannot be taken for granted, the UN chief said that while solutions and technologies to improve water management exist, these are often not accessible to all. In many cases, they end up perpetrating inequity within and among countries, according to the UN website.

“As with most development challenges, women and girls suffer disproportionately. For example, women and girls in low-income countries spend some 40 billion hours a year collecting water,” the UN website quoted Guterres as saying. 

In Jordan’s speech, Ghezawi shed light on water scarcity that tops the Kingdom’s priorities, referring to the challenges that Jordan faces in sustaining water resources and the impact of several refugee influxes, especially Syrians whose number stands at some 1.3 million refugees, Petra reported.

He also pointed out the government efforts in water and sanitation sectors, calling on the international community to support the Jordan Response Plan to handle the Syrian refugee crisis, especially with regard to water and sanitation services. 

The minister stressed the importance of regional cooperation in water issues, highlighting the close relation between water issues, from one side, and security and peace, from the other, where he called on all regional and international partners to work together to realise prosperity and peace. 

Earlier in March, Jordan’s Permanent Representative to the UN Sima Bahous submitted the final report of the panel to Guterres.

In her remarks at a ceremony dedicated for publicising the report, titled “Making Every Drop Count: An Agenda for Water Action”, Bahous said that water scarcity is a top priority for Jordan, which ranks the third poorest in the world in terms of water resources.

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