1st MEDITERRANEAN WATER FORUM
Marrakech, Morocco
19-20 December 2011
The challenges represented by water in the Mediterranean region are a highly relevant focus of attention for all stakeholders.
As a result of its geographic, geo-climatic and geo-political specificity, the Mediterranean region has placed these challenges at the highest level of the agenda of its social, economic and environmental development policies.
In recent decades, water has been included in all the initiatives and cooperation programmes as well as exchanges of experiences and knowhow.
The first Mediterranean Water Forum was held on December 19th-20th, 2011 in Marrakech (Morocco), and its main objectives were:
- To set up a consultation process favourable to a mobilization of the Mediterranean water community
- To finalize the Mediterranean process towards the 6th World Water Forum (March 12th-17th, 2012).
A large number of representatives of different stakeholders from the Mediterranean water community were thus able to take part in the different working groups and panels organized within this framework.
The holding of this First Forum was financially supported by different national and regional stakeholders from the water community and in particular, by the State Secretariat for Water and the Environment of the Moroccan Ministry for Energy, Mines, Water and the Environment, the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Regional Council and the French Development Agency.
In conformity with the objectives of the Mediterranean Water Forum, the activities carried out during the opening and closing ceremonies and during the work groups were mainly related to the following purposes:
- Give a new impetus to the consultation and dialogue between water stakeholders in the region;
- Propose a coherent and federative approach for the four priority themes defined by the Mediterranean process for the 6th World Water Forum, namely:
- Water demand management
- Non-conventional water resources use
- Water governance
- Urban and industrial sanitation.
