Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) Munir Akram has stressed on the water problem, saying that Pakistan is projected to be among the top 10 countries in the world facing water scarcity.
He made these remarks while speaking about the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 6, which deals with the issue of clean water. Highlighting the water issues, he said that Pakistan is on top in terms of water scarcity.
Emphasizing on the cause of water issues, the UN representative cited climate change, floods and drought as the cause. The UN envoy said an appropriate framework around which to structure the themes of the dialogue could be created through its five accelerators funding, data and information, capacity development, innovation and governance.
Munir Akram, speaking about water governance issues, said that cross-border water cooperation is vital when it comes to supporting comprehensive regional integration, peace and sustainable development as well as addressing regional security challenges and climate change adaptation. There is a role. ,
According to the news channel, “Currently, transboundary waters account for 60 percent of the world’s freshwater flows. 153 countries have at least one area in 286 transboundary river and lake basins and 592 transboundary aquifer systems.” ,
“With most of the world’s water resources being shared between two or more countries, the need for cross-border cooperation becomes even greater with increasing water scarcity,” it said.
This comes at a time when Pakistan’s national water supply has been severely depleted and is facing severe stress despite the onset of summer in mid-March and April being warmer than usual. This is because the process of melting snow in mountainous and mountainous areas has not gained momentum.
“The water supply level in Pakistan is much below last year’s level. This is less than the average supply of the last five or 10 years. On Saturday, the country received 90,000 cusecs in all its rivers, as against the previous 10-year average of 1,37,700 cusecs, a decline of 27.73 per cent.“
As Dawn reports, the crisis has forced Pakistan to begin the kharif season with a deficit of about 40 per cent in both its water-producing systems – 30 per cent in the Indus and 10 per cent in the Jhelum branch.