(MENAFN- Jordan News Agency) Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour on Monday took part in the Stockholm World Water Week, which started today in the Swedish capital.
Ensour delivered a speech in the opening session, in which he highlighted the government's plans to address water issues, noting that "the refugee influx to Jordan as a result of the political crises in the region has overwhelmed our precious water resources and fragile infrastructure".
Ensour said that "in the near future, water shortage is expected to become an international dilemma that incites new armed conflicts. Many experts have solid evidence that water disputes are already an integral part of many countries international relations, and water security is increasingly being addressed by many countries as part of their national security strategic approaches. Jordan however, is using the water dialogue as an element for corporation rather than conflict initiation".
He added that "we are a nation already burdened with extreme water scarcity that has always been one of the biggest barriers to our economic growth and development. Just to give you a small understanding of our situation, the internationally recognized water poverty line is 1000 m³/capita/year while Jordan has only 145 m³/capita/year. Our current water use exceeds renewable supply".
The premier said that Jordan is now further burdened with the massive influx of 1.4 million Syrian refugees into Jordan over the past 3 years, with less than 10% in camps and the rest absorbed into our communities. Jordan hosts 3.5 million refugees from many countries, We are a nation of less than 7 million people so the situation is placing unprecedented demands on already limited and stressed water supplies and water systems.
" So Jordan has a crisis on top of a crisis. The refugee influx to Jordan as a result of the political crises in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya has overwhelmed our precious water resources and fragile infrastructure. Water and sanitation infrastructure investments that we were planning to implement in 10 years to meet normal population growth demand are now urgently required" He said, noting that "this urgency is driven as much by the need for sufficient water supply as by the reality that a fragile water sector directly undermines social cohesion and economic development, exacerbating the tensions already raised within Jordan and across the region as we battle the spillover effects of violence and unrest.
The prime minister said that "This is a shared problem that extends beyond Jordan. Our region's water deficit is projected to triple by 2030, reaching 130 billion cubic meters. This will necessitate significantly more investment for water infrastructure and for the region's water utilities. To address the expected water deficit, it is currently projected to cost Arab states $300-400 billion by 2030. This will place a very heavy burden on the region to raise the necessary funds, let alone to recover project costs".
He added that "This is why we have been at the forefront of regional and international cooperation. Just this year we signed an MOU between Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians to start the first phase of the important Red-Dead strategic project. The foundation of this agreement is to develop and deliver supplies where they are needed the most. Jordan will build a desalination plant to produce around 80 million cubic meters per year of fresh water by the end of 2019. Half of this will be sold to Israel in exchange for equivalent water volumes from Lake Tiberius to serve Jordan's northern governorates where the majority of refugees have settled. This will supply Jordanians, Israelis and Palestinians with water where they need it the most while better sustaining the Dead Sea, which is dropping by 1m per year, and significantly reduces the cost of the total project".
Moreover, the premier pointed out that Jordan has made significant progress in transforming its water sector to address these rapidly changing needs and evolving challenges. We are underdoing structural reforms, adapting international standards for good governance and management to our unique environment. The pillars of this reform are improved groundwater management as we face rapidly depleting reserves, stronger sector regulation, water-energy nexus, and especially exploring renewable energy options to combat the high cost of energy which accounts for 40% of the cost of operating our water sector.
"Jordan's perspective goes in hand with Sweden's approach towards water issues of the region, which revolves primarily around capacity building for regional water cooperation and integrated water resources management" Ensour noted, adding that "for us, there are three main lessons from Jordan's experience in tackling some of the most extreme water scarcity while hosting the world's 2nd highest refugee population per capita". He indicated that "the first is that donor assistance in a refugee crisis cannot only concentrate on a humanitarian response. Refugees in Jordan and other host governments place a significant and long-lasting burden on all essential services (water, wastewater, health, education, employment,crime ,narcotics etc.) and we know from past experience that the majority of refugees will stay. This means that donor assistance is also needed for medium and long-term investment programs that strengthen a nation's resilience in the face of these burdens".
He added that "Second is that we must recognize that fragility of the water sector has an under-reported and under-considered role and impact. As a global community, we need to find ways that go beyond current development and economic indicators to monitor and assess the state of the water sector and its interrelationships with a country's society, economy and stability overall.
"Countries are classified economically, because according to that classification our country would receive aid or deprived from receiving that aid. If you are high on the scale then you don't receive any aid, if you are low on the scale then you receive it", he said, adding that "we are in a very special situation, three, four, five wars now are raging in the Middle east and we are right in the middle, peaceful democratic country and we are thriving to build our own democracy in the Middle East".
"Now we have a national resilience plan to cope with the refugees problem, to offer what is available from what is offered by donor countries , which is less than 40 percent of the cost inflected in Jordan", Ensour said.
In a middle-income country that doesn't have enough natural resources and have huge number of refugees, and you finance 60 percent of the cost of millions of refugees, that's quite a cost" he noted, pointing out that Jordan looks forward for the advice of the expertise for the aid of our democratic friends and Sweden stands at the forefront of those countries that care for humanity.
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