Caretaker Minister of Energy, Walid Fayyad, has urged “the international community and donors to back the plans, strategies, and reforms aimed to revive the water sector, among other fields, achieve sustainable development, and ensure a decent living for the Lebanese people.” In a word delivered at the UN Water Conference in New York, Fayyad stressed the necessity to turn the transboundary water, such as rivers and subterranean water, into a tool of peace and integrity, and not an instrument of pressure and extortion or a pretense for warfare. He went on saying that since 2011, the massive displacement of Syrians into Lebanon has crippled the state institutions and infrastructures. “On many occasions, the Lebanese state urged the international community to assume its duty through ensuring a safe repatriation of the displaced and the refugees and helping them in their countries, and to support the Lebanese government to address this crisis through providing care for the displaced and improving their livelihood conditions, in addition to setting developmental projects and investments for the host communities,” he explained. “Lebanon has devised a national strategy for the water and sanitation sector before he displacement ordeal. But this strategy, among others in the fields of electricity, renewable energy and petroleum, has faced a major setback due to the displacement of Syrians,” he said. “We have presented the strategy to the international donors seeking their support. But the international community seemed disinterested in providing the required help, and the funding of all the strategic projects we had embarked on was brought to a halt,” he deplored. “Lebanon is an example of the countries that the international circumstances have prevented from achieving an integral management of the water sector,” he added, urging the international community and donors to help revive this sector.
Source: National News Agency-Lebanon