IWRM Workshop in collaboration with UNEP/ROWA

The availability of adequate clean water is recognized by the globe community as a basic need, as emphasized in the Millennium Development Goals, which set a target for the world to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.  The management of our water resources was also recognized in Paragraph 24 of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementing emanating from the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) refers to the development of "integrated water resources management and water efficiency plans by 2005, with support to developing countries, through actions at all levels".

Within the West Asia region is one of the priority issues, both in terms of quantity and quality.  Water has been. And is increasingly becoming, a major concern for the region's governments.  There are a wide range of technologies available throughout the world to deal with the issue of both quantity and quality, but what is needed in the region is an approach which best suits the challenges, resources and capabilities of the governments and organizations involved in water management and technologies development.  In order to achieve this it is necessary to develop a region-specific approach to environmentally sound techniques and technologies for water management, addressing demand and supply management (particularly in terms of agriculture demand, which represents 85% of the water used in the region), quality and innovative techniques for non-conventional resources, to ensure that this valuable resource is available for generations.

As such a significant amount of work has been undertaken by the UN system as well as regional and national organizations in developing, promoting and implementing sustainable approaches to sustainable water management.  What the majority of these have at their core us Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), recognizing the need to look holistically at how we manage our precious water resources in the region, and in particular the important role that water demand management has to play.