Rome – QU Dongyu, the Director-Normal of the Meals and Agriculture Group of the United Nations (FAO) immediately welcomed the choice to award the King Hassan II of Morocco Nice World Water Prize to the group on the tenth World Water Discussion board, held in Bali.
Primarily based on the theme “Securing water assets for meals sovereignty and shared prosperity,” the award acknowledges excellent efforts within the safety, preservation, and sustainable administration of water assets.
The FAO Director-Normal’s assertion in full beneath:
“On behalf of the Meals and Agriculture Group of the United Nations (FAO), I’m delighted to simply accept the celebrated King Hassan II of Morocco Nice World Water Prize. I thank the Jury Committee of this Prize to your recognition of FAO’s contributions to the worldwide efforts in the direction of water safety.
It’s certainly an honour to be awarded this prestigious Prize which acknowledges and rewards actions that promote the safety and preservation of water assets, enchancment of their administration, and reuse of wastewater, in addition to elevating consciousness among the many inhabitants about water points. The prize is awarded each three years throughout a particular ceremony held throughout the World Water Discussion board.
Water is now totally built-in into the FAO Strategic Framework 2022-31, is on the core of the FAO thematic methods on Local weather Change, and on Science and Innovation, and their associated motion plans, and is nicely mainstreamed throughout all of FAO’s work.
Final yr, for the primary time within the Group’s historical past, water was the theme of the forty third Session of the FAO Ministerial Convention – the very best governing physique of the Group. The exact same Convention endorsed the theme of water assets administration for the 2024-25 biennium, consequently water has been on the agenda of all of the FAO Governing Our bodies and technical committees over the next two years, to focus discussions on mobilizing the wanted data and assets to advance FAO’s work on water.
Water was additionally the theme for World Meals Day 2023, which commemorates the institution of FAO on 16 April 1945, and was celebrated throughout the World Meals Discussion board: “Water is Life, Water is Meals. Leaving nobody behind”.
In December 2023, the FAO Council endorsed the Conceptual Framework for Built-in Land and Water Sources Administration, which serves as an organizational technique to information our work on land, soil and water.
Whereas these choices arrange FAO’s inside working mechanisms on water, the annual Rome Water Dialogue and the Excessive-Stage Dialogue on the World Framework on Water Shortage in Agriculture (WASAG) are FAO platforms that facilitate data sharing on water, mobilize management and assets, and foster sustainable options to realize each water and meals safety.
These are just some examples and milestones alongside FAO’s new Water Journey that I launched on the very first Rome Water Dialogue in 2022.
Externally, FAO is supporting Members in sustainable agriculture growth and water administration, together with supporting international locations to develop their Nationwide Water Roadmaps in the direction of attaining the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Growth, in addition to to satisfy their irrigation wants and potential mapping, flood impacts evaluation and danger administration, amongst others. As well as, the FAO Water Productiveness Open-access portal (WaPOR) know-how assists Members in areas reminiscent of to complement water information and data, water tenure dialogues, water shortage initiatives, and drought administration plans.
On the UN 2023 Water Convention, FAO performed an lively position and submitted eight commitments to the World Water Actions. I’m proud that we’ve got made important progress on all of them. FAO is a core member of the UN system to develop the UN system-wide technique on water and sanitation, and I lately joined the opposite members of the UN Chief Executives Board (CEB) in Chile, who acknowledged and validated the work being undertaken.
FAO is selling and implementing built-in water-food options to deal with the worldwide challenges of meals insecurity, water disaster and local weather change via our area work, coverage steerage and engagement via the devoted COPs processes.
I’m deeply appreciative to all colleagues throughout FAO, particularly from the Land and Water Division, and different technical divisions chargeable for forestry, fisheries and aquaculture, local weather and biodiversity, in addition to these chargeable for communication and governance, amongst others, who’ve supported me in implementing my imaginative and prescient and methods via their specialised experience, data and capacities.
Let me take this chance to name for worldwide companions to work collectively on water administration and the transformation of agrifood programs to be extra environment friendly, extra inclusive, extra resilient, and extra sustainable going ahead, to realize the imaginative and prescient of the 4 Betters: higher manufacturing, higher vitamin, a greater setting and a greater life, leaving nobody behind.
Thanks as soon as once more to the Kingdom of Morocco for this prestigious honour and recognition.
上善若水，丰衣足食。水色人生，服务人类！(The best advantage is like water, nurturing prosperity and guaranteeing meals safety. Water mirrors an excellent life, serving the humanity of entire world.)
