JEDDAH: Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Hissein Brahim Taha said that the theme of this year’s International World Water Day, “Be the change,” is a call to promote awareness about water conservation and to seek alternative water sources and regulations for a water-secure future.

He underlined that the water crisis, like any other global crisis, requires a cohesive international community that enables its stakeholders to work collectively toward common goals by facilitating knowledge-sharing and capacity-building.

The OIC chief emphasized that water security has assumed strategic importance for the organization’s member states. The challenges of ensuring access to water and managing unpredictable water-related risks are becoming more pronounced, he added.

The “enormity of the challenge requires indeed a collective response within a framework of cooperation at global, regional and sub-regional levels,” Taha said.

He reiterated that the OIC remains committed to ensuring the realization of its Water Vision Implementation Plan, approved in Egypt in 2018, “which provides a framework for promoting cooperation for a water-secure future through increased collaboration, exchange of best practices, technology transfer, capacity-building and development of expertise in various water-related disciplines.”

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is participating in the UN Water Conference, which is being held at UN headquarters in New York between March 22-24.

The Kingdom’s delegation is led by Abdulaziz Al-Shaibani, the undersecretary for water affairs at the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture, and includes other representatives from the water sector in the Kingdom.

The delegation will participate in several plenary meetings during the conference to shed light on the Kingdom’s experience in water sustainability over the past five years. New initiatives are expected to be announced during the conference to help address the challenges facing the least developed countries.