The Minister of Water and Environment, Eng. Abdul Raqib al-Sharmani, on Wednesday discussed with the Deputy Resident Representative of UNICEF, Yemen, Luciano Calestini, the cooperation and coordination between the Ministry and the organization to support the water and environmental sanitation sectors.
The meeting, which was attended by the Director General of the Urban Cities Project, Muhammad al-Muqadami, the head of the Water and Environmental Sanitation Department at the UNICEF office in Yemen, George Tabbal, and the organization’s water and environmental sanitation specialist, Anis al-Arashi, reviewed the level of the organization’s interventions in implementing the action plan for the years 2023-2024 AD, and the strides it has made in supporting water projects and sanitation.
The meeting addressed the problems faced by the Ministry of Water and its institutions, bodies and units in implementing their plans, programmes and projects during the current phase, given the low proportion of UNICEF funding, particularly sanitation problems and ways to overcome them.
The meeting also addressed the level of implementation of UNICEF-funded projects and the scale of funding for their implementation, in particular priority projects in the field of water and sanitation, as well as solar projects that contribute to the sustainability of water projects and alleviate citizens' suffering.
At the meeting, Minister Al-Sharmani stressed the need to strengthen the partnership with UNICEF, the main partner in the water and sanitation sector to support the Ministry of Water and its institutions' efforts to provide water and sanitation services to citizens and alleviate their suffering in the current situation.
The consequences of eight years of aggression and siege on the water and environmental sectors have contributed to the weakness of the Republic's water system, requiring continued support for UNICEF and its support for efforts to alleviate the human suffering of Yemenis.
He stressed the importance of continuing UNICEF's support for solar energy projects, which have made progress by 30-40 percent in this aspect, and setting priorities for supporting rural water projects and local water and sanitation institutions.
The Minister of Water and Environment expressed the hope that the mobilization of funding for the water resources sector would be scaled up to ensure the preservation of water stocks and resilience to climate change, address sanitation problems and focus on rural areas.
While the Deputy Resident Representative of UNICEF expressed the organization's desire to continue to cooperate with the Ministry of Water and Environment and its bodies and institutions and to support its efforts in providing water and sanitation services to citizens.
He stressed UNICEF's endeavour to strengthen the level of partnership with the Ministry of Water and Environment and to activate its activities in the current situation in Yemen.
Source: Yemen News Agency
