JEDDAH, 18 July 2003 — Prince Talal ibn Abdul Aziz, chairman of the Arab Gulf Fund for the Support of United Nations Organizations (AGFUND), has announced the establishment of a special fund to finance water projects implemented by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. He said AGFUND was donating $1 million to the new water fund.
The prince, who serves as UNESCO special envoy, was speaking at an international water conference in the Netherlands. He called on governments, organizations and individuals with an interest in development to extend material support to the new fund and said this was needed to enable the fund fulfill its objectives.
Prince Talal underlined the need for the world community to pay more attention to the water problem, which had become a matter of survival.
“By announcing 2003 as the International Year of Water, the UN sought to make people become more aware of this pressing issue and expose the threats associated with it. Water shortage represents one of the most serious problems now facing humanity, far outstripping any other humanity has seen. It’s no exaggeration to call it a matter of life and death,” he was quoted by the Saudi Press Agency as saying.
Prince Talal said the publication of the first world report on water development — the result of a joint effort involving 23 UN agencies — represented a step in the right direction and would help raise the level of public awareness of water issues.
With the world population increasing threefold in the course of the 20th century, water consumption jumped double that figure. Today, 1.1 billion people remain deprived of clean water and 2.4 billion live without appropriate sewage systems.
Prince Talal warned of the dangers looming over developing countries as a result of water shortage and called for a new international effort for the management of water resources. He said developing countries need to review their water management systems and to address the fundamental shortcomings. This required the political will at the highest level to make the allocation of funds a priority to allocate enough funds to repair national institutions responsible for the management of water resources.
Prince Talal renewed his call to encourage internal migration as an option to help solve the water problem. He said convincing people to move within countries according to the distribution of water resources would help ease the pressure on these resources.
He highlighted the problems facing Gulf countries in particular, saying these countries continued to register high population growth in a manner inconsistent with their water supplies. He said introducing charges on consumption and increasing existing charges was one way of water conservation in the region.
