Euro - Mediterranean conference on water management in Turin next week
Regional, Economics, 10/13/1999

The Italian northern city of Turin plays host next week to a Euro-Mediterranean ministerial conference on local management of water.

The two-day conference to start proceedings next Monday will approve a strategic plan on water management, quality and availability in the Mediterranean region.

The conference will be attended by ministers of water resources of the 27 countries member of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, a statement by the Italian ministry of public works said.

A libyan delegation has also been invited to the conference after an absence of eight years in view of the embargo decreed against Tripoli following the Lockerbie issue.

The strategic plan will take into account practical proposals to cope with the water deficit affecting the region where 28 million souls have not access to the required vital minimum, i.e. 500 cubic meters per year and per capita.

According to experts, the situation will even get worse as demographers project that the population will grow by 90 million by year 2025.

The plan will highlight the broad lines of a comprehensive water strategy and the appropriate actions to be made to improve and rationalize water management and to mobilize public and private investments.

The European investment bank allotted in the frame of the 1992-97 five-year plan One billion Euros to water management projects in Mediterranean countries, while the European commission earmarked over the past four years 5 billion Euros to back Mediterranean countries' development efforts.

From 1996 to 1998, the World Bank disbursed loans worth $ 170 million to finance water and used water treatment projects.

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