..Press Release................................ UNESCAP News Services

Date 17 February 2006
Note to Editor: N/07/2006

WATER EFFICIENCY KEY TO ACHIEVING ‘GREEN GROWTH’

Water conservation workshop to meet in Tehran, 21-23 February

BANGKOK (United Nations Information Services) – An International Workshop on Innovations in Water Conservation, co-organized by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), the Regional Centre on Urban Water Resources Management-Tehran, and the Tehran Province Water and Wastewater Company (TPWWCo), will be held in Tehran, the Islamic Republic of Iran, from 21-23 February at the TPWWCo Conference Hall.
Approximately 50 participants from 14 countries are expected to attend. Delegates will include policy makers, water resources experts, water supply providers, UNESCAP and UNESCO experts, and representatives of the public and private sector.

In a message to be delivered to the Workshop, Mr. Kim Hak-Su, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and UNESCAP Executive Secretary, notes that more efficient use of dwindling water supplies is widely recognized as a crucial strategy for stopping the unsustainable exploitation of water resources and de-linking economic growth from degradation of the aquatic environment.

“Improved water-use efficiency – meeting the demand for water by using less of the resource – is a crucial factor for achieving economic growth without compromising environmental sustainability, primarily water resources sustainability, or in other words, for securing ‘Green Growth’,” he says.

The Workshop aims to identify, analyze, and facilitate dissemination of good practices in the formulation and implementation of policies and programmes, campaigns, and activities targeted at improving water conservation and the efficiency in water use.
Tehran, which is a member of the Kitakyushu Initiative Network, is the host city for the first pilot project on water-use efficiency ever implemented under the auspices of the Initiative.

At the Workshop the outcome of a pilot project in the Nassim Housing Complex in Tehran will be presented as a good practice for possible replication. Experts believe the project would bring a savings of about 15 per cent on Nassim residents’ monthly household water bills and if applied across Tehran as a whole, could save about 135 million cubic meters per year or US$ 6.5 million. This is significant for a city which is already experiencing water shortages during even mild droughts.

In many countries in the region, water is rapidly becoming a scarce resource, yet it continues to be used wastefully. Improved efficiency of water use is widely recognized as a crucial element for sustainable water resources development, which will definitely lead to easing the pressure on the existing, but often dwindling, water supplies.

The Kitakyushu Initiative, adopted in 2000, mandates the achievement of measurable progress in improvement of the urban environment in major cities in Asia and the Pacific, mainly through local initiatives aiming at control of air and water pollution and minimization of all kinds of wastes.

‘Green Growth’ is an innovative conceptual approach adopted at UNESCAP's Ministerial Conference on Environment and Development, held in Seoul, Republic of Korea in March 2005. It advocates environmentally sustainable economic growth through eco-efficient and resource-saving economic activities.

For further information, please contact:
Mr. Rae Kwon Chung, Director
Environment and Sustainable
Development Division
Tel: +(66-2) 288-1510; Fax: +(66-2) 288-1048
E-mail: chung1@un.org

For media inquiries, please contact:
David Lazarus, Chief
UN Information Services Bangkok
Tel: +(66-2) 288-1861/66
Fax: +(66-2) 288-1052
E-mail: unisbkk.unescap@un.org

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