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Compiled by the Government Communication and Information System --------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Mar 2007 Title: Landmark World Bank report urges for water policy change --------------------------------------------------------------- By Lavinia Mahlangu The first World Bank report in a decade on water use in the Middle East and northern and eastern Africa has urged countries to draft better policies in order to optimise their use of this vital resource. Making the Most of Scarcity: Accountability for Better Water Management Results in the Middle East and North Africa, is the Bank's first report on the subject in 10 years. The report states countries can cope if they change policies that currently encourage inefficient land use, overuse of non-renewable water resources, pollution, ecological damage, and poorly maintained infrastructure. One reason for elbow-room, said the Bank, is that 85 percent of water in the region is used in agriculture to irrigate crops that are more easily grown in other places and can be imported. Increasing scarcity will force the region to narrow water uses, said Julia Bucknall, Lead Natural Resources Management Specialist and the report's co-author. "They're going to have to use the water for the things that generate the highest amount of money and employment," rather than for crops like wheat that are more cheaply and easily grown elsewhere, said Ms Bucknall. The region, with its abundant sun, would do well to concentrate on such cash crops as grapes, tomatoes, melons, and strawberries and increase trade with Europe, she advised. It was observed that governments and policy-makers are also increasingly willing to tackle water problems as the true costs of pollution and water scarcity become apparent. Algeria, Egypt and Morocco, for instance, spend between 20 and 30 percent of their budgets on water. The report estimates water-related environmental problems cost many countries between half a percentage point and 2.5 percent of their Gross Domestic Product a year. These ecological costs "show in very simple terms the costs of water pollution...and have had a big impact in terms of changing investments in water treatment," said Ms Bucknall. Nearly 80 percent of all the water that falls in the Middle East and North Africa is used, according to the report. This in stark contrast to other areas of the world, such as Latin America, the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa, which use only about 2 percent of available water in their regions. The already heavy usage of water in the Middle East and North Africa does not leave much room to accommodate an expanding population or the effects of climate change, which could help cut the amount of water available per person in half by 2050. "We are certainly not suggesting that the choices involved are easy. "They involve painful changes. Yet the alternative is worse. Making difficult policy choices now will allow water to continue to provide services, livelihoods, jobs and environmental benefits for the future," said Ms Bucknall. Many of the answers to the region's water problems rest on changes to non-water policies, such as agricultural price supports that keep some crops artificially profitable, or energy subsidies that make pumping water from aquifers deep underground artificially cheap. Ms Bucknall said policymakers from ministries of irrigation, housing and urban development, water resources, environment and energy can increase their impact if they "remember the effects of things outside water." "It's important for water people to be scanning the horizon for policy changes that are going to have a major effect on water, and to time reforms for when there is political acceptance for them." Mustapha Nabli, Chief Economist for the Bank's Middle East and North Africa region, chaired a panel, including regional experts, that expressed the need for timely action to build on existing initiatives and improve water accountability. "Water management institutions need to adapt to the needs of the 21st century; allowing people to become more involved in voicing demand for better services, monitoring the quality of resources and protecting them from pollution and in contributing fully to the major and hard decisions that need to be made," he said. Many countries are also managing water resources more efficiently by decentralizing water decision-making, and even privatising irrigation, such as Morocco, the report observed. - BuaNews |
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