AKEL on World Water Day

Press statement of the Environmental Bureau of the C.C. of AKEL

AKEL C.C. Press Office, 22nd March 2017, Nicosia

The water crisis, according to the World Economic Forum, is the primary global danger with regards the specific impact it will have on society.

Today 663 million people – 1 in 10 – do not have access to clean water.

2.4 billion people, that is 1/3 of the world’s population, live without access to sanitation facilities.

In Cyprus, the lack of water causes major water and irrigation problems which are solved by technical methods, often at great cost. At the same time, the risk of our island’s desertification remains high.

The sustainable management of water resources, and particularly the issue of adequate water and sanitation, is the main issue on the agenda of all recent international conferences. On the pretext of the protection of the environment or the ecological dimensions of the water problem, policies are being promoted for the privatization of water and sanitation throughout the world.

These policies being imposed by the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO) within the framework of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), are aiming at transferring the necessary resources for satisfying people’s vital needs to sectors for capital’s profitability.

AKEL considers that water is a natural resource to which all our country’s citizens are entitled to have equal access, but also all over the world. Only then will it constitute a social good and not a commodity. Its management demands centralized planning

Inter alia, AKEL proposes the following:

• The elaboration of a comprehensive water policy.
• Enhancing the legislative framework that treats water as a natural resource vital for people, nature and society’s development.
• The planning and implementation of all the necessary land reclamation and other infrastructures that will prevent, ease and address the occurrence of floods and drought, that will save and enrich water supplies.

Water is necessary for the development of all sectors of our country’s economy. Consequently, the efforts to enhance its quality, rational management and proper use need to continue.