Seychelles’ founding President Sir James R. Mancham called on the UN Secretary General to establish a World Water Organization within the UN system in order to highlight and to upgrade the importance of the water crisis which the world is facing today.
Sir James made the call at the World Water Summit which The Economist hosted on Thursday, November 6, 2014 at the Crystal Conference Centre in London Docklands.
Earlier, this conference had heard from the Chairman of the summit – Mr. John Parker (Environment Editor of The Economist) and Mr. Jan Eliasson (Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations), whose addresses were followed by a video message from His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.
Three high-level panelists made up of Vivian Balakrishnan (Minister for the Environment and Water Resources in Singapore), Ephraim Kamuntu (Minister of Water and Environment of Uganda), and David Korenfeld Federman (National Water Commission CONAGUA of Mexico) openly discussed the looming water crisis and the progress on water policy.
Given the growing strains on the planets’ water resources, the panelists discussed how governments can build capacity and take the lead in driving a sustainability agenda and how they can also work with partners in civil society and the private sector.
As it is now established that the world is about to face a situation where the need and demand for water is in excess of availability on a worldwide basis, Mr. Mancham believes that the United Nations must take the lead to coordinate and to meet the water crisis in all its dimensions.
Uganda’s Minister Kamuntu said he was fully supportive of Mr. Mancham’s viewpoint and shared his goal that if the United Nations could have a specific organization dedicated to World Health and World Tourism, there was now a necessity to think about the World Water Organization.
Mr. Jan Eliasson, Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations said that President Mancham’s message deserves consideration. “Whilst the United Nations has so far done a good work at horizontal level with respect to the water problem, the urgency of tackling the issue and the menace of water shortage is such that the creation of a specific organization could be justified.”
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