NEW YORK: Saudi Arabia has made great progress in its efforts to ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all, the Kingdom’s permanent representative to the UN, Abdullah Al-Mouallimi, said on Tuesday. This is the sixth of 17 interlinked UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by all member nations in 2015 as part of the organization’s 2030 Agenda. Together the goals aim to eradicate poverty in all its forms, protect the planet and improve lives. Al-Mouallimi told a high-level meeting about the implementation of SDG6, convened by the UN on World Water Day, that Saudi Arabia is considered a pioneer in efforts to to achieve the goal, and highlighted the significant water-related investments it has made. “My country is the world leader in producing desalinated water, with 16.5 percent of global production,” he said. “(The) Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has worked on the implementation of 508 water dams, with a total storage capacity of 2.2 billion cubic meters, and launched the initiative to develop surface-water resources by constructing 1,000 dams.” He also noted that during its annual summit in Riyadh in November last year, under the presidency Saudi Arabia, the G20 — an international forum for the governments and central banks of 19 nations and the EU — agreed, for the first time, to include flexible and sustainable water management as part of its future plans, and to enhance cooperation on water issues between its members and the rest of the world. Al-Mouallimi said that a set of pivotal initiatives were introduced, including a dialogue on water issues in G20 countries, and that best practices in the field of flexible and sustainable water management will be documented and shared on a five-year electronic platform hosted by the Kingdom. “My country has volunteered to operate and maintain the platform and secure financial and technical support for it during the five-year period,” he said. It is “later to be handed over to an international organization to manage and develop it,” he added. In keeping with Saudi Arabia’s “keenness to provide clean water and sanitation systems,” Al-Mouallimi also underscored some of the many strategic decisions the Kingdom has made to advance water-related sectors. “These decisions include the issuance of the National Water Strategy 2030, which identified 10 programs and 47 initiatives that achieve the Kingdom’s vision for the water sector,” he said. It also includes a road map for the future “that seeks to update and promulgate (water-related) laws and policies, develop regulations, licenses and quality standards related to water-resource management, rehabilitate and develop wastewater treatment plants and promote reuse of treated water, (spread) awareness, education and behavioral change campaigns, and develop renewable groundwater and surface water resources.” Al-Mouallimi called for more solidarity and cooperation among the international community to help guarantee “this basic right of life,” and to ensure all nations can benefit from an exchange of experiences and adopt best practices to end the suffering that results from water scarcity. In conjunction with the meeting, Jay R. Lund, one of the winners of the ninth Prince Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz International Prize for Water, received his award during a ceremony co-hosted by the UN and the permanent missions of Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar, Singapore, Tajikistan, Thailand and Yemen. Guests included UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Volkan Bozkir, president of the UN General Assembly. The prize, which is presented every two years to recipients in five categories — Surface Water, Groundwater, Alternative Water Resources, Water management and Protection, and Creativity — in is an internationally renowned scientific award. Established in 2002, it honors innovative research to find solutions to global water-related challenges. Lund, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Davis, received the prize for Water Management and Protection. He developed a water supply optimization model that is a tool for the integrated analysis of regional water supply systems that couples traditional criteria with economic considerations. Al-Mouallimi said: “Although we are not on track to meet the targets under SGD6, I hope the momentum from the high-level meeting, and the groundbreaking work of the scientist being honored today, will help close the scientific and sanitation gaps to better achieve this goal.”