DEAD SEA, Jordan, 1 June 2004 — The first International Water Demand Management conference opened here on Sunday with an urgent call to address the impending water shortage in the region. King Abdallah of Jordan attended the formal opening and was welcomed by Dr. Hazem Al-Naser, the minister for water and irrigation and chairman of the conference.
Naser led speakers presenting a bleak picture of the region's water use. He said the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) would continue to face challenges because the water supply for the region has not kept pace with the demands put on it by rapid population growth - the highest in the world - or the rapid economic growth in the region.
With the per capita water volume of available water expected to drop from 3,500 cubic meters per year now to only 666 by 2025, he said a substantial amount of investment was needed to augment water supply. This would mean a rise from $20 billion to 45 billion per annum to develop new supplies.
"This precarious situation necessitates our collective cooperation in this field," he said. Water shortages in the region are taking on a political dimension as many aquifers cross national borders. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak has said the only reason he would go to war is over water.
Jordan was one of the first countries in the world to sign a water agreement. The first was 1953 and a second in 1987. "When we signed the peace treaty with Israel in 1994, Annexe 2 - which comes immediately after security and borders - stipulates Jordan's water rights, i.e. the amount of water that Jordan and Israel my take from each of the rivers they share," Al-Naser said.
"We would like to see similar agreements between other Arab countries. We do not believe it will cause war, but at least some kind of sensitivity. It's better at least that people start discussing it," he said. He said any developments must ensure an equitable and efficient supply of water which would require an open and transparent bureaucracy respecting "the human being and his or her dignity."
US Ambassador to Jordan Edward Gnehm said he was disturbed to learn 97 percent of the world's water is saline, and of the three percent that is left, two-thirds is trapped in the polar ice caps. Even around great river systems like the Nile droughts and disruptions in the water cycle mean that demand management is necessary, and more so where water is scarce. "Water scarcity has been the impetus for some extremely creative technology on both demand and supply side for several thousand years in the MENA area," he said.
He said that Jordan had tackled water scarcity boldly and with inventiveness and the conference - held as it is in an area of scarce water resources - reflected the inevitability of future water scarcity in now well-supplied regions.
Letitia Obeng, the region's water and development director for the World Bank agreed that MENA was the most precarious of the three most water scarce regions in the world, home to 50 percent of their populations. The biggest drain on water resources in the MENA region was agriculture. "Almost 80 percent of available water resources are used by agriculture, which makes a very mixed contribution to GDP of between two and 20 percent," she said. "The contribution of agriculture to the food self-reliance agenda is also very mixed."
MENA is polluting its own scarce water resources, she added, and this puts financial strain on the economy. Damage costs from pollution in Egypt alone are estimated at $800 million, one percent of GDP, and $100 million in Jordan, or 1.3 percent of GDP.
The conference, which has drawn water professionals from all over the world, continues through to Thursday.
