Experts attending the Amwaj (Waves) Sustainability and Entrepreneurship Forum for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) on 27-28 November in the Jordanian capital Amman focused on the challenges facing the region, including growing demand for water and energy. Although the public sector plays a major role in these areas, it often cannot keep up with demand or fund expansion. The experts argued that the private sector is a strong candidate to manage water and energy projects in the Middle East, especially in the light of the need for better governance of the services sector and the reassessment of water and energy policies. They added that improving technology to increase services and innovations that meet demand for cheap energy were future priorities, underscoring the need to provide incentives to support green economies and green building projects that reduce energy consumption and meet international sustainability goals. Amwaj focuses on offering socially innovative ideas, sharing best practices and finding practical solutions to building inclusive societies for a sustainable future in the MENA region. It brings together decision-makers in the private and public sectors, leaders in environmental sustainability, social entrepreneurs and the media to create a socially responsible, water and energy conscious community based on sharing natural resources to drive positive change. Discussing world demand for water, the participants said this would rise by 40 per cent in the coming period, noting that consumer awareness about water and energy consumption must increase. There was a need to strike a balance in dealing with utilities to cut energy budgets in regional countries, they noted. They emphasised the importance of creating a network of Middle Eastern countries alongside developed countries to address the world's water and energy challenges. Jordanian Princess Sumaya bint Al-Hassan attended the forum, a pioneer gathering focused on sustainability in the Middle East to help achieve the UN's 2025 Sustainability Agenda in the region. The forum met under the patronage of Prince Al-Hassan bin Talal of Jordan and was attended by more than 260 youth professionals, thinkers, journalists, businessmen, influential figures and researchers from the UN, civil society organisations and media from 40 countries. Princess Sumaya noted the need to pivot towards a better future for the coming generations and to work to achieve UN Sustainable Development Goals. She said Jordan had some 167,000 registered engineers, which the country sought to benefit from to plan a sustainable future. The princess highlighted the importance of enriching knowledge and building a culture of innovation, transforming fears into successes by relying on research, technology and economics founded on innovation, technological advances and sustainability. She said these things were essential to addressing problems and finding positive solutions for development. She also called for a focus on entrepreneurship to achieve sustainability and contribute to change in the Arab world, relying on the experience of developed countries to reach the prosperity levels of citizens there. Quoting recent NASA reports, she said these had warned that her country faced “the challenge of the worst drought in 40 years” caused by evaporation from the Dead Sea and high drought levels. UN Envoy for Youth Ahmad Al-Hindawi, present at the forum, said the UN supported sustainable development and assisting poorer countries impacted by climate change. He said that while the Arab world constituted only five per cent of the world's population, Arabs accounted for more than half the world's refugees. Al-Hindawi added that the MENA region suffered from high unemployment rates and that there was a need to create 60 million job opportunities by 2020 in parallel with achieving security, peace, education and employment. He said the future required linking entrepreneurship with sustainability by relying on youth to achieve the UN's goals for sustainable development. Ambassador Andrea Matteo Fontana of the EU delegation to Jordan talked of “waves of change in the Mediterranean” region in his presentation to the forum, saying that sustainable development was a top priority for the EU which supported the sustainable use of resources in the MENA region through research and funding. The world faced many challenges and pressures, especially in terms of energy and water resources, Fontana said, adding that the EU wished to find solutions by the year 2020 by cutting energy consumption by 20 per cent and converting more broadly to green energy. Carbon dioxide emissions were also being cut by 20 per cent, he said. Fontana noted that Jordan imported 96 per cent of its energy and that the EU was working to help slash this figure through investments worth 150 million euros in green energy and linking green energy to all communities. Desalination projects using solar energy in the Sahara Forest Project in southern Jordan were now producing some 10,000 litres of fresh water every day, he said. Fontana said that the cost of pumping water out of underground wells was very costly and would raise the price of electricity in Jordan, representing some 40 per cent of the kingdom's total bills. He noted that the recent flow of Syrian refugees into Jordan had also put pressure on the kingdom's water resources, adding that these needed to be improved and made more efficient. Ahmed Al-Sheikh, manager of one the forum's sponsors, an international company producing soft drinks and food, said his company had succeeded in implementing a “positive water balance” in Jordan and had launched several projects in cooperation with the Jordanian Ministry of Water and Irrigation and the country's National Water Authority. Al-Sheikh said his company was committed to contributing to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, helping to protect the food system and improve the use of water by 25 per cent. He hoped to showcase the company's initiatives at Amwaj 2016 as a model that confirmed the importance of public-private partnerships in confronting major development challenges such as water scarcity. Dina Sherif, a sustainable development expert at Ahead of the Curve, a campaign group, said that the adoption of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the ratification of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change had propelled sustainability to the heart of the global dialogue about the planet's future. The Amwaj Forum was designed to help reach a common understanding of the importance of sustainable development in line with the UN goals, she said. Stuart Reigeluth, the founder of Revolve, an international development magazine, said bringing companies, journalists and civil society together to discuss the importance of water was “an essential part of efforts to create a sustainable future in the MENA region.” “Strategic partnerships are a major key to raising awareness and making social impact,” Reigeluth said. Editor of Revolve Francesca de Chatel discussed water and corporate social responsibility at the forum, saying that the top stories in the magazine's latest issues, published for the first time in Arabic in six countries, were all about water issues.
