Water Resource Protection in the Arab World

From 2 to 4 June 2008, the regional workshop on "Protecting Drinking Water Sources from Pollution: Policy Options and Practical Solutions" was held under the patronage of H.E. the Minister of Water and Irrigation of Jordan, Eng. Raed Abu Soud at the Dead Sea in Jordan. The workshop was organised by the regional BGR-ESCWA water project in cooperation with the MWI-BGR project in Jordan, AWARENET, ACWUA, and was funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

The workshop brought together over 70 participants from competent government authorities, water utilities, academia, NGOs, the private sector and development projects from 12 Arab Countries, namely: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen, including resource people from Germany, Japan, UK and USA.

The participants issued the "Dead Sea Statement" on water protection recommendations in condensed form. The "Dead Sea Statement" shall facilitate and support advocacy work by local, national and regional initiatives and projects for water and environmental protection.

The statement could be downloaded from AWARENET website: www.awarenet.org