Climate Change represents major challenge to water management: Abdel-Atti

CAIRO – 24 October 2021: In his opening speech at the Cairo Water Week (CWW 2021) conference on Sunday, Egyptian Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Abdel-Atti said that climate change is a major challenge to water management. 

 

“What the world has witnessed over the past period is the best evidence of the revolution of nature against people,” he said, noting that good and effective management of transboundary waters requires enhanced cooperation with more attention.

 

“Cairo is raising alarm if the whole world [people] do not join their efforts to deal with the challenges related to the most scarce and most important resource, which is water,” he added.

 

Egypt locates in one of the aridest areas and 97 percent of its water resources come from the Nile, Abdel Atti added.

 

“Egypt is suffering from a wide gap between water resources and consumption with 90 percent and reuses 35 percent of the consumed water to make this gap narrow,” he said.

 

“Water is the shared legacy for all human beings and the most important right over history,” he continued.

 

The fourth edition of the Cairo Water Week this year comes under the slogan “Water, Population and Global Changes: Challenges and Opportunities.” The themes of this edition are regional and sectoral cooperation for water security; advance in water management; water and society; water and global challenges; and innovation in hydro-sciences.

 

In his speech at the conference, Senegal’s Minister of Water and Sanitation Serigne Mbaye Thiam affirmed that his country will continue its cooperation with Arab countries and the Islamic nation in general and with Egypt in particular.

 

He invited the attendants for the 9th World Water Forum will be organized by Senegal and the World Water Council in Dakar on March 21-26, 2022 for discussing ways of building the capacity of humanity in the face of multidimensional crises.

 

“The main theme of the Cairo Water Week 2021 ‘Water, Population and Global Change: Challenges and Opportunities’ is topical and consistent with the priorities of the 9th World Water Forum,” he said.

 

Also, in his opening speech at the CWW 2021, Abdulhakim ElWaer, Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative of FAO in the Near East and North Africa region said that the sustainable development agenda is threatened without making any progress in the second and the six sustainable development goals (Zero Hunger, and Clean Water and Sanitation).

 

He added that water scarcity problems are in the worst situation due to climate change and population growth.

 

UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Science for Peace President of the Royal Scientific Society of Jordan Princess Sumaya bint El Hassan said that sustainable and peaceful development will remain a mere fantasy without careful, considered and collaborative management of the most precious of resources. 

“In our Arab region, we are especially in need of scientific and diplomatic engagement on a vast scale to avoid catastrophe.