Environment Committee
Understanding the Blue Revolution
The Environment Committee met on June 23 to discuss “Alliance building to advance the Blue Revolution.” The guest speakers were Peter Reiss, chief of party of Development Alternatives, and Nemat Guenena, partnership expert for Environmental Quality International.
Reiss highlighted three major areas of concern for water in the region: transboundary water conflicts, inefficient use and mismanagement of water, and limited public access to improve water and sanitation services.
Transboundary water conflicts in the region are largely the result of water resources being shared by many countries that do not have strong diplomatic relations, and the lack of treaties or major government agreements governing water usage.
He suggested that a Blue Revolution, “a broad partnership of governments, donors, the private sector, foundations, academia and other users [is needed] to change how people think about and use water.” In early 2007, USAID designed the three-year Advancing the Blue Revolution Initiative, which builds alliances and partnerships to create a shared vision for water usage between governments and other stakeholders.
Guenena discussed the importance of the involvement of the private sector. She stressed that water is the most basic commodity and an essential input to the global economy and individual businesses. “The water industry [is] one of the three largest industries in the world in terms of assets deployed,” she said. “However, it still is not well understood by investors, and therefore is ‘under-owned.’”
Finally, Guenena noted that demand for water is unaffected by inflation, recession, interest rates, changing preferences or inventory loss. She also noted that the private sector can lead the Blue Revolution in numerous ways, including determining the economic value of water to internal business, costs and risks in business supply chains, and developing a corporate water policy that addresses water usage, quality and community collaboration.
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