The second edition of Cairo Water Week is underway in Egypt. The five days event was last Sunday launched by Egypt’s minister for irrigation and water resources, under the auspices of H.E. Mr. Abdel Fatah El-Sisi, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt to promote water awareness in the country.
The event, organized by the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation in collaboration with national, regional and international partners including UNs’ Food and Agriculture Organization, also aims to encourage innovation to tackle water-related challenges.
The event themed “Responding to Water Scarcity” comes at a time when water scarcity is a global challenge.
Felix Reinders, Chairperson of the International Committee on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID), who addressed the first session of the forum says more than one-third of the African population will greatly suffer from water shortage by year 2030.
An increase in world population is a factor that will put pressure on water resources. It is expected that the global population could reach 9.8 billion in 2050 from 7.3 billion people according to 2017 UN data.
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In addition to water experts and researchers, top government officials and various envoys from Arab and African countries attended the 2nd CWW opening ceremony where documentaries were screened detailing the importance of water in agriculture and the need to utilize the commodity wisely.
The first session of the forum titled “Achieving SDGs under Water Scarcity” tackled the aspects of promoting efficiency in domestic, agricultural and industrial water use, mitigating water quality degradation and pollution clean-up, coping with water scarcity to achieve food security, accounting for optimum water management, making clean water and safe sanitation accessible and affordable , interlinkages between water, energy, food and environment, managing water to alleviate poverty and hunger, progress towards achieving Goal 6 of the SDGs and public-private partnership (ppp) in water management.
Various sessions are lined up, including deliberations on achieving sustainable development goals with regard to water.
Other sub-sessions will be held on Research and Innovation in facing water scarcity; non-conventional water resource use; Cooperation in Water Sector; and Climate Change Impacts, Mitigation, and Adaptation.
Cairo Water Week runs from 20th to 24th October, 2019 at Al-Manara International Conference Center, located in New Cairo area.
