SENEGAL: FAYE M Mansour appointed vice president of the Global Panel on Water and Peace

M FAYE Mansour VP Global Panel on Water and Peace.

Africa is now the head of the International Water diplomacy with the appointment of M FAYE Mansour, Minister of Water and Sanitation of Senegal, as the vice president of the Global Panel on Water and Peace. The appointment of FAYE also comes in recognition of the success of the OMVS. The report by Strategic Foresight Group, "Water Cooperation Quotient," published earlier this year, had said OMVS as the best organization of river basins in the world. 

 

On November 16, 2015, Didier Burkhalter, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland, led the meeting of 15 governments in Geneva to launch the Global Panel on Water and Peace, whose mandate is to provide a comprehensive architecture to be able to transform water from a source of the crisis to an instrument of cooperation and peace. The new global initiative to prevent water wars will generate an annual peace dividend of $ 200 billion in shared river basins in the developing world. The high-level panel chaired by Mr. Danilo Türk, former President of Slovenia.

The Swiss government and Strategic Foresight Group, a global think-tank based in India, collaborated to create the panel to develop economic and financial mechanisms to encourage cooperation on transboundary waters, to develop instruments to resolve conflicts water, to encourage best practices in integrated water resources management and to implement global agreements on water resources.

"Currently more than 300 billion cubic meters of fresh water is depleted every year in the developing world. If this continues, there would be food shortages in 20 years, leading to higher food prices, riots and migration, "said Sundeep Waslekar, president of Strategic Foresight Group. 

"The work of the Panel will be relevant for 2.3 billion people living in shared river basins in the developing world with a gross economic output of $ 10 billion per year. If in these regions transboundary water cooperation leads to the reduction of conflicts and military spending, we can expect a peace dividend of 100-200 billion each year, "he added.

Dr Danilo TURK, former President of Slovenia and President of the panel said, "Our panel will be privileged to study the experiences gained in the Senegal River Basin as an example with the largest scope of cooperation on water in the world today and to consider ways in which this experience can inspire future commitments to all parts of the world of tomorrow "

Senegal is the co-sponsoring countries of the Global Panel on Water and Peace with Cambodia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Estonia, France, Hungary, Ghana, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Oman, Spain, Slovenia and Switzerland. The UN agency for the cooperation of all activities related to water, United Nations Water will be the observer of the panel.

The Global Panel on Water and Peace should meet a few times in the cosponsors countries over the next two years and to consult stakeholders other countries and multilateral and regional organizations in the context of his work. It is expected to present a report and put it in the UN system and the international community in December 2017.