Prince of Orange will attend World Water Forum in Mexico on 16 March until 18 March 2006
His Royal Highness the Prince of Orange, on Thursday 16 March till Saturday 18 March, will attend the Fourth World Water Forum in Mexico-City, Mexico.
During the opening of the water conference, the Prince will hold a speech. The next day, the Prince will make a field visit to the example project Lago the Pátzcuaro. The Prince opens Saturday 18 March on the Forum the themadag over complete water management.
The Fourth World Water Forum start on 16 till and with 22 March through the Mexican government in the Centro Banamex in Mexico-City organized, and has as a theme Local Actions for a Global Challenge. During the Forum will to expectation 8,000 - 10,000 participants with each other in dialogue go over the activities that they undertook the water situation in their own surroundings to improve.,. The participants present plan and divide can discharge experiences so the world-wide water crisis on. In total become there on the Forum in 195 sessions, single hundred example projects presented. During the conference, each day an own theme gets, as risk management, water for food and integral water management.
The Forum is an initiative of the World Water Council and becomes round the three year organized. On 22 and 23 March finds there to occasion of the World Water Forum a Ministerial Conference place, where the global water crisis are discussed. For the Netherlands, assistant secretary of Traffic and Public works, Melanie Schultz of Haegen at the conference will participate.
The Prince of Orange was the chairman of the Second World Water Forum in March 2000. The Prince is protector of the Global Water Partnership.
Speech by the Prince of Orange, 16 March 2006 at the opening ceremony of the fourth World Water Forum in Mexico City ‘Restoring the home of the tadpoles’: boosting local action by enabling leadership and sharing knowledge” Señor Vincente Fox, president of the United States of Mexico, Your Imperial Highness, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, First, Mr President, let me thank you for hosting this fourth World Water Forum. And with you, I would like to thank everyone in Mexico involved in the preparations. Organising global conferences like this one is not easy. It takes a lot of hard work, as I remember only too well from the second World Water Forum in The Hague. So I appreciate all the more your efforts to boost action on water issues all over the world. The message we are sending to the world this week is that we need local actions. I salute the Mexican government for acknowledging this fact, thereby showing the leadership we need to pick up our pace in dealing with the important water issues that determine the future of billions. For the Mexican government, it is clearly beyond dispute that water should remain a priority on the international agenda. And I’m sure it will come as no surprise that I agree with that entirely. Ladies and gentlemen, according to a well-known saying from the world of management, ‘processes don’t do work, but people do’. You can’t really argue with that. Yet I believe that it doesn’t strictly apply to our work here. Ever since the first World Water Forum in Morocco, water has been higher on national and international agendas than ever before. Many initiatives have already been launched. The numerous actions that will be discussed here in the coming week show that sustainable water management is a hot issue the world over. Without the vision formulated in Marrakech in 1997, and the call issued there for a Blue Revolution, we would never have gotten this far. The step from vision to action, which it was my privilege to present in The Hague in 2000, was also essential. And Kyoto in 2003 was a landmark because it linked an action programme for water with the Millennium Development Goals. I believe that the main aim of this fourth World Water Forum is for the hundreds of projects that will be presented here to act as catalysts for thousands of new projects worldwide. All these events form benchmarks. And yet, at the end of the day, it is people who do the work. That is something we should never forget. Because the global challenges we face must indeed be met with actions at local level. I only need to point to the findings of the UN Millennium Project and the Sachs Report. Ladies and gentlemen, one person who really knows how to work is Wangaari Maathai, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. In her acceptance speech, she took her audience back to her childhood in Kenya. The water in the small river near the family home was clean, safe and healthy. Fifty years on, she could still remember her joy and wonder as a child every time the frog spawn in the stream transformed into thousands of tadpoles. But now, fifty years later, said Ms Maathai ‘.. the stream has dried up, women walk long distances for water, which is not always clean, and children will never know what they have lost.’ With these words, she revealed the exact reasons why she set up the Green Belt Movement in 1977. This organisation, which since then has planted more than thirty million trees, is making a big difference for many people, mainly because they themselves play a leading part in the work of the Green Belt Movement. Putting an end to deforestation in this way not only leads to economic development in rural areas. It also improves the water supply, strengthens the ecosystem and – last but not least – boosts the self-confidence of the thousands involved. Or, as the Nobel Prize winner herself put it: ‘The challenge is to restore the home of the tadpoles and give back to our children a world of beauty and wonder.’ Ladies and gentlemen, this is the kind of leadership we need if we are to do justice to the motto of the fourth World Water Forum: local actions for a global challenge. Wangari Maathai is the living proof that ‘think globally, act locally’ can – and must – be more than a clever slogan in the global dialogue on water, development and sustainability. Or to put it another way, for me, the significance of this Forum lies in the follow-up at local level. I think it is safe to say that, at this point, we don’t need more new policies. What we do need is swift action. Especially in view of last year’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. That report brings home to us how careless we have been with the earth’s natural resources in the past fifty years. It also shows that the tide must be turned if we are to survive. Biodiversity is at stake and with it, the well-being and very existence of future generations. Water is a crucial factor and it is no exaggeration to say that the figures and water scenarios presented in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment are frightening. Let me give you a few of those figures. The number of flood events rose dramatically between 1950 and 2000. In Asia, they increased sevenfold and on the American continent roughly by a factor of nine. Recent, highly destructive hurricanes and cyclones like Rita, Katrina and Damrey give us little hope for the future. Especially in the light of climate change which – amongst other things – will lead to more extreme weather conditions and rising sea-levels. Another factor that is cause for concern, given the already increasing scarcity in many regions, is the growing demand for water. In the most pessimistic scenario, global water withdrawals will increase by 85 per cent between 2000 and 2050. At the same time, water availability will increase by no more than seven per cent. The main reason for this growing demand is population growth and the need for more food. As I have stressed on many earlier occasions, the global water crisis is mainly an agricultural crisis because 70 per cent of all water withdrawals are being used to grow crops. And that is only an average. In some countries, the figure is nearly 100 per cent. In the light of the scenarios I have just sketched, water managers and scientists of all kinds will be under increasing pressure to ensure that in the near future farmers can grow more crop per drop. The world simply must increase its agricultural productivity with less water. There is no other way. Those among you who also attended the second World Water Forum in The Hague and the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 will recognise this as one of my favourite themes. But, as I just said, we don’t need new policies. The ones we have are cutting edge. The growing demand for water has yet another dimension which, I am convinced, will become increasingly prominent in the years to come. That is the ongoing discussion on our future energy supplies. The demand for energy is growing, one of the reasons being the rapid economic growth of countries like China and India. At the same time, reserves of fossil fuels are limited. So it is logical that the demand for hydropower will increase. In many respects that is good news for the world, since hydropower is clean and ecosystem-friendly. But generating it calls for a continuous, reliable flow of water, with consideration for the interests of all stakeholders. That is not only an extra challenge for water managers. It also places restrictions on withdrawals of water for other purposes .
#1-3: Prince William Alexander of the Netherlands, delivers a speech during the second Magisterial Conference on water at the IV World Water Forum 18 March, 2006 in Mexico City .
#4: Prince William Alexander of the Netherlands (L), speaks with an assistant during the second Magisterial Conference on water at the IV World Water Forum 18 March, 2006 in Mexico City. From Profimedia
From www.koninklijkhuis.nl
at the opening of the session on Integrated Water Resource Management during the fourth World Water Forum in Mexico City. “Integrated Water Resource Management: much achieved, even more to be done.”
Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Global Water Partnership. As patron of this very prominent lobby for the IWRM concept, I mention this fact at the start of today’s session with some pride and satisfaction. Thanks to the work of the Global Water Partnership and others, IWRM has gained a firm place in the worldwide debate on water. Exactly three years ago today I was able to say the following at the opening of the third World Water Forum: ‘More and more people are now convinced that the current water crises arise from inadequate or improper management of water resources, rather than water shortages per se.’ I am repeating this today not because I enjoy quoting myself, but to show that this conviction has grown ever since 1992. In that year it was concluded in Dublin and Rio de Janeiro that traditional, sector-specific water management was economically inefficient, socially inequitable and environmentally unsustainable. That is why, at Kyoto, I expressed my satisfaction at the agreement reached in Johannesburg in 2002 that all countries would have IWRM in place by 2005, along with water efficiency plans.
So there is reason enough now, at the start of 2006, to take stock of our position.
As the Global Water Partnership’s recent IWRM survey shows, 21 per cent of countries are making good progress with their integrated water plans. Three years ago, that figure was only 12 per cent. And 53 per cent are now taking some steps towards IWRM. The percentage of countries still in the initial stages dropped in three years from 39 to 26.
That means that we have failed to meet the Johannesburg targets. That much is clear. So I would urge the countries concerned to move faster. At the same time, I conclude that for the majority of countries, water is apparently no longer a commodity that can be taken for granted in policymaking. It is no longer something eternal, that just flows by. The awareness that is needed even to start IWRM means that more and more countries are now treating water as a resource to be appreciated, understood and protected. As something that has to be managed, because it is crucial for social and economic development, for the ecosystem and for security. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I call progress.
Of course, we still have a long way to go. Of course, we still need more proof that we can implement plans by taking action on the ground. And of course, we need to pick up our pace. But let us not forget that we started with next to nothing. So my message to you at the start of this session is that the IWRM glass is not half empty, but half full. Our common mission here today is to make sure that we fill the rest off the glass as quickly as possible. And as I said earlier this week, during the opening ceremony, we don’t need new policies. What we do need are projects in which real people deal with their own, very real problems.
The Partnership’s survey also shows the two main obstacles before us. The first is money – too little money to buy the hardware needed for projects, and too little money to invest in human software through education. This underscores once again how important it is for donor countries to meet their international commitments and earmark 0.7 per cent of their GDP for development cooperation. It’s in their own interest tot do so. Because investing in water means investing in development, equity and stability, and therefore in the future of our planet. I know that this sounds simple, but the solution to the first obstacle for a large part lies in the attitude of donor countries.
The second obstacle to introducing IWRM is the responsibility of individual countries themselves. As the survey shows, a considerable number of countries are seeking an increasing level of perfection in policy formulation, and that is becoming almost an end in itself. Many policy and lawmaking processes take more than four or five years to complete. The trick is not to fall into that trap and yet at the same time to take account of all the people and groups that have a stake in the plans. Because if any of them are left out, the plans have little to do with IWRM and their implementation can never be truly integrated.
The good news is that not a single country will have to start from scratch. And that brings me to the purpose of today’s session. There is a wealth of knowledge and experience available, with the Global Water Partnership as our focal point. Let me give you two European examples.
The Netherlands has had water boards ever since the Middle Ages; they are in fact our oldest democratic institution. For many hundreds of years they have forged a direct link between interests, representation and payment of costs in local water management. So we have more than 800 years’ of relevant experience to offer. Of course, applying that experience elsewhere always involves adapting to the local situation. But even so, eight centuries of knowledge and know how offer plenty of excellent opportunities to speed up IWRM in other parts of the world. For the past four years, Dutch water boards have been working with partners in Suriname, Indonesia, South Africa and Egypt to set up local and regional water authorities. In Egypt for example, knowledge exchange has produced positive results in the Fayoum district, where stakeholders have joined forces to manage drinking water, irrigation and drainage systems. South Africa adopted a modern, highly ambitious Water Act in 2000, which brings water management closer to the people. Pilot projects with Catchment Management Agencies are now operating in two river basins, with the help of Dutch water boards who act as sparring partners.
My second example is the European Water Framework Directive. Its aim is to bring the quality of the water in the entire European Union up to standard by 2015. By that year, water must be clean and ecologically healthy. For the first time in history, the 25 member states of the European Union have committed themselves to jointly managing all their freshwater resources at river basin level. This makes the Directive a remarkable piece of water legislation. But it took thirty years to get this far. You can well imagine that those thirty years, and the Directive itself, have taught us enough lessons to share with other countries and regions. And of course we are ready to do so.
The bottom line is that there are no magic buttons that we can push to fix things immediately. With IWRM we are in for the long haul. It takes patience and hard work. But in the end, all that hard work pays off. Applying IWRM is like playing with an endless supply of building blocks. With every block, we lay the foundation for the next change needed for the perfect house. We may well ask whether we will ever achieve our ultimate aim – total implementation of IWRM. But anyone who has ever seen children playing with building blocks will agree that the process is the critical success factor. Consultation and taking account of each other’s ideas and interests, will gradually bring us closer to perfection. So the boldness of the IWRM concept itself seems to contradict the satisfaction we have to take in the small steps we can make.
I personally experience that satisfaction every time I have the opportunity to see for myself how countries, regions and villages are coping with water issues.
In October last year, for instance, I was in Zhengzhou, China, where I witnessed the start of the first GWP water partnership at river basin level between the nine Chinese Yellow River provinces. It was a wonderful example of multi-stakeholder involvement and integrated planning, which deserves to be copied all over the world.
In November last year, standing on a bridge over an irrigation canal in Morocco, I was again struck by the realisation that all our work in international conference halls is meaningless if it does nothing to improve the lives of people living in water stressed regions.
And the most recent experience to make an impression on me was in January, when I accompanied a delegation from Louisiana on a tour of major water works in the Netherlands. Governor, senators and their delegation were eager to learn how we dealt with our own Katrina – the storm that devastated our southwest coast in 1953, claiming more than 1800 lives. I can honestly say that we were eager to share our knowledge, because what happened in New Orleans brought back many sad memories to the people of my country. The Louisiana delegation’s visit proved to me once again that sharing knowledge and experience is essential in dealing with the water issues we face.
1.He looks like Ryan Seacrest in this (not physically but the same mannerisms: like a TV host )
2. It's just me or W-A looks much better serious than laughing?
Crown Prince Willem Alexander of the Netherlands dances with African Dancers on Saturday 18 March 2006, at the pavilion of Africa during the celebration of the World Water Forum held in Mexico City earlier this week.
at the opening of the session on Integrated Water Resource Management during the fourth World Water Forum in Mexico City. “Integrated Water Resource Management: much achieved, even more to be done.”
Quote:
Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Global Water Partnership. As patron of this very prominent lobby for the IWRM concept, I mention this fact at the start of today’s session with some pride and satisfaction. Thanks to the work of the Global Water Partnership and others, IWRM has gained a firm place in the worldwide debate on water. Exactly three years ago today I was able to say the following at the opening of the third World Water Forum: ‘More and more people are now convinced that the current water crises arise from inadequate or improper management of water resources, rather than water shortages per se.’ I am repeating this today not because I enjoy quoting myself, but to show that this conviction has grown ever since 1992. In that year it was concluded in Dublin and Rio de Janeiro that traditional, sector-specific water management was economically inefficient, socially inequitable and environmentally unsustainable. That is why, at Kyoto, I expressed my satisfaction at the agreement reached in Johannesburg in 2002 that all countries would have IWRM in place by 2005, along with water efficiency plans.
So there is reason enough now, at the start of 2006, to take stock of our position.
As the Global Water Partnership’s recent IWRM survey shows, 21 per cent of countries are making good progress with their integrated water plans. Three years ago, that figure was only 12 per cent. And 53 per cent are now taking some steps towards IWRM. The percentage of countries still in the initial stages dropped in three years from 39 to 26.
That means that we have failed to meet the Johannesburg targets. That much is clear. So I would urge the countries concerned to move faster. At the same time, I conclude that for the majority of countries, water is apparently no longer a commodity that can be taken for granted in policymaking. It is no longer something eternal, that just flows by. The awareness that is needed even to start IWRM means that more and more countries are now treating water as a resource to be appreciated, understood and protected. As something that has to be managed, because it is crucial for social and economic development, for the ecosystem and for security. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I call progress.
Of course, we still have a long way to go. Of course, we still need more proof that we can implement plans by taking action on the ground. And of course, we need to pick up our pace. But let us not forget that we started with next to nothing. So my message to you at the start of this session is that the IWRM glass is not half empty, but half full. Our common mission here today is to make sure that we fill the rest off the glass as quickly as possible. And as I said earlier this week, during the opening ceremony, we don’t need new policies. What we do need are projects in which real people deal with their own, very real problems.
The Partnership’s survey also shows the two main obstacles before us. The first is money – too little money to buy the hardware needed for projects, and too little money to invest in human software through education. This underscores once again how important it is for donor countries to meet their international commitments and earmark 0.7 per cent of their GDP for development cooperation. It’s in their own interest tot do so. Because investing in water means investing in development, equity and stability, and therefore in the future of our planet. I know that this sounds simple, but the solution to the first obstacle for a large part lies in the attitude of donor countries.
The second obstacle to introducing IWRM is the responsibility of individual countries themselves. As the survey shows, a considerable number of countries are seeking an increasing level of perfection in policy formulation, and that is becoming almost an end in itself. Many policy and lawmaking processes take more than four or five years to complete. The trick is not to fall into that trap and yet at the same time to take account of all the people and groups that have a stake in the plans. Because if any of them are left out, the plans have little to do with IWRM and their implementation can never be truly integrated.
The good news is that not a single country will have to start from scratch. And that brings me to the purpose of today’s session. There is a wealth of knowledge and experience available, with the Global Water Partnership as our focal point. Let me give you two European examples.
The Netherlands has had water boards ever since the Middle Ages; they are in fact our oldest democratic institution. For many hundreds of years they have forged a direct link between interests, representation and payment of costs in local water management. So we have more than 800 years’ of relevant experience to offer. Of course, applying that experience elsewhere always involves adapting to the local situation. But even so, eight centuries of knowledge and know how offer plenty of excellent opportunities to speed up IWRM in other parts of the world. For the past four years, Dutch water boards have been working with partners in Suriname, Indonesia, South Africa and Egypt to set up local and regional water authorities. In Egypt for example, knowledge exchange has produced positive results in the Fayoum district, where stakeholders have joined forces to manage drinking water, irrigation and drainage systems. South Africa adopted a modern, highly ambitious Water Act in 2000, which brings water management closer to the people. Pilot projects with Catchment Management Agencies are now operating in two river basins, with the help of Dutch water boards who act as sparring partners.
My second example is the European Water Framework Directive. Its aim is to bring the quality of the water in the entire European Union up to standard by 2015. By that year, water must be clean and ecologically healthy. For the first time in history, the 25 member states of the European Union have committed themselves to jointly managing all their freshwater resources at river basin level. This makes the Directive a remarkable piece of water legislation. But it took thirty years to get this far. You can well imagine that those thirty years, and the Directive itself, have taught us enough lessons to share with other countries and regions. And of course we are ready to do so.
The bottom line is that there are no magic buttons that we can push to fix things immediately. With IWRM we are in for the long haul. It takes patience and hard work. But in the end, all that hard work pays off. Applying IWRM is like playing with an endless supply of building blocks. With every block, we lay the foundation for the next change needed for the perfect house. We may well ask whether we will ever achieve our ultimate aim – total implementation of IWRM. But anyone who has ever seen children playing with building blocks will agree that the process is the critical success factor. Consultation and taking account of each other’s ideas and interests, will gradually bring us closer to perfection. So the boldness of the IWRM concept itself seems to contradict the satisfaction we have to take in the small steps we can make.
I personally experience that satisfaction every time I have the opportunity to see for myself how countries, regions and villages are coping with water issues.
In October last year, for instance, I was in Zhengzhou, China, where I witnessed the start of the first GWP water partnership at river basin level between the nine Chinese Yellow River provinces. It was a wonderful example of multi-stakeholder involvement and integrated planning, which deserves to be copied all over the world.
In November last year, standing on a bridge over an irrigation canal in Morocco, I was again struck by the realisation that all our work in international conference halls is meaningless if it does nothing to improve the lives of people living in water stressed regions.
And the most recent experience to make an impression on me was in January, when I accompanied a delegation from Louisiana on a tour of major water works in the Netherlands. Governor, senators and their delegation were eager to learn how we dealt with our own Katrina – the storm that devastated our southwest coast in 1953, claiming more than 1800 lives. I can honestly say that we were eager to share our knowledge, because what happened in New Orleans brought back many sad memories to the people of my country. The Louisiana delegation’s visit proved to me once again that sharing knowledge and experience is essential in dealing with the water issues we face.
Ladies and gentlemen,
In the Global Water Partnership’s tenth anniversary year we have some reason to be satisfied, since much has been achieved. Last Thursday I attended the ceremony of the Hassan 2nd Great World Water Prize, which was awarded to, may I say, mr GWP himself, Torkil Jønch Clausen. I am really proud for this recognition of his IWRM work! But we cannot rest on our laurels, because there’s even more to be done. I believe that it was the right decision to dedicate this Forum to best practices. As you well know, some people consider large international events on sustainability and development, to be mere talking shops, producing few tangible results. This kind of comment could also be heard in the run-up to the fourth World Water Forum. I challenge you to prove the critics wrong. By learning from each other here, and by inspiring each other with actions and projects, you can put in an extra effort when you get home. This will require all your energy and resolve. But there is no other way, because, ladies and gentlemen: we have to fill that glass.
I think he is so much like his father. the same interests at all. I heard an Interview with the prince where he said that he always learned about the world's problems by his parents. Alexander is a great man. :)
Prince Willem-Alexander received his primary education at the Nieuwe Baarnse School in Baarn and started his secondary education at the Baarns Lyceum.
He continued his secondary education at the Eerste Vrijzinnig Christelijk Lyceum in The Hague, and completed it at Atlantic College in Llantwit Major, Wales, where he gained an International Baccalaureate in 1985.
After completing his military service, the Prince enrolled as a history student in the Arts Faculty of Leiden University in 1987. This gave the Prince a wide-ranging knowledge of a broad spectrum of subjects, including general and Dutch history, economic history, political science and constitutional law, EC law, international law, human rights and economics.
The Prince concluded his studies with a dissertation on the Dutch response to France’s decision under President de Gaulle to leave NATO’s integrated command structure. He was awarded a degree in history in 1993.
)
Linear Mode
