12.03.2012: The 6th WORLD WATER FORUM IN MARSEILLE
Marseille – Start date: 12.03.2012 to date: 16.03.2012
The world’s largest meeting around water
Every three years since 1997, the World Water Forum mobilizes creativity, innovation, competence and know-how in favor of water. It gathers all stakeholders around today’s local, regional and global issues that cannot be undertaken without all stakeholders into a common framework of goals and concrete targets to reach.
The goal of the 6th World Water Forum is to tackle the challenges our world is facing and to bring water high on all political agendas. There will be no sustainable development while the water issues remain unsolved. Everywhere on the planet, for all and everyone, the Right to Water (recognized by 189 states at the UN one year ago) must be guaranteed and implemented
The Union for the Mediterranean at the World Water Forum
The Union for the Mediterranean Secretariat will participate in the event by delivering a conference on the ‘Desalination Facility for the Gaza Strip – A Key Solution for an Intensifying Water Crisis’. This session will take place next March, 12th, from 15:30 to 16:30h.
A globally recognized water crisis exists in the Gaza Strip where the only available water source is from the deteriorating Coastal Aquifer. Due to a lack of alternatives, the population is compelled to abstract annually almost three times the aquifer’s sustainable yield severely damaging the resource. The World Bank characterized the situation as so dire that “only 5-10% of the aquifer is now yielding drinking quality water”. A consensus has emerged that the only long-term solution to this water crisis must include the development of a major desalination facility and water conveyance system. The session will focus on the Palestinian Authority promoted solution which the Senior Officials of the 43 Members to the Union for the Mediterranean have endorsed as the first UfM project with the important objectives of promoting peace, regional stability and prosperity. In particular, the participants will welcome commitments of the international community to implement the solution.
Moderator/Chair:
Dr. Rafiq Husseini, Deputy Secretary General of Environment and Water, Union for the Mediterranean
Participants:
H.E. Mahmoud Abbas, President of Palestine National Authority
Mr. Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme (tbc)
Mr. Ahmed Mohammed Ali Al-Madani, President of the Islamic Development Bank
Mr. Philippe de Fontaine Vive, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank
Ms. Jean Gough, Special Representative to the occupied Palestinian territory, United Nations Children’s Fund (tbc)
Mr. Fathallah Sijilmassi, Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean
