HRH Prince of Orange closes UNESCO-IHE 50th anniversary celebration ceremony

His Royal Highness The Prince of Orange, Chairman of the UN Secretary-General's Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation, closed the Celebration Ceremony of UNESCO-IHE’50th anniversary. Prince Willem Alexander, an alumnus of course of 1998, highlighted the need to have well-educated professionals to change the world’s water future. “It cannot be denied that this need has grown in the past fifty years, and will continue to grow. After all, the field is becoming increasingly complex, because the various interests at stake – water, food production, energy and ecosystems – impact much more directly on each other”, said HRH.

See full speech at http://www.koninklijkhuis.nl/content.jsp?objectid=18846

In this context, UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education has an essential role to play. The deputy Director General of UNESCO, Marcio Barbosa, emphasised the strong demand in all regions of the world for the kind of training that is needed to ensure that the Millennium Development Goals are reached and maintained over time. “It is not enough to celebrate the past, as glorious and successful as it is for this Institute. In the coming years, UNESCO, through UNESCO-IHE, must find ways to meet this demand, and to fulfil its potential within the United Nations system”, said Barbosa on behalf of the Director General Koïchiro Matsuura.

The celebration ceremony was the close-up of the 3-day symposium Water for a Changing World: Enhancing local capacity, where experts from 36 different countries discussed on the necessary actions to implement change in the development of the water and sanitation sectors.

The symposium came up with a set of recommendations which include:

• Local actors’ participation as partners, not as “beneficiaries” to only “receive” pre-determined solutions;
• Local knowledge should be incorporated and leadership promoted
• Education and training are crucial, at postgraduate level but also at primary as secondary level, as many children in developing countries don’t make it to tertiary education.
• Communicate better with policy makers and society is crucial
• Increase awareness about urgency of problems
• Involved everybody, ensure coordination and integration
• Appropriate solutions are best developed by the South.