East Mediterranean Coastal Eco-Security – UNESCO-IHP Hydro-Diplomacy Initiative –
Wastewater Marine Discharge – City of Gaza
The purpose of the “East Mediterranean Coastal Eco-Security” hydro-diplomacy initiative is to offer, under the auspices of UNESCO-IHP and WHO, an East Mediterranean regional forum of municipal governments, with the participation of the scientific community, the financial sector, water and wastewater utility corporations, media and academia, as well as other regional and international stakeholders to support local governance capacity building programs in order to effectively:
- Ensure sustainable urban water supply and sanitation facing the increasing regional water stress,
- Implement safer wastewater treatment before discharging into the marine environment and continuously preventing pollution of the coastal ecosystem
- Promote water reuse for agricultural applications and food security
- Engage coastal ecosystem preservation measures and effluent quality control monitoring observatories to efficiently alleviate growing public health risks and severe environmental hazards.
This regional hydro-diplomacy initiative is rooted in the Civil Society Initiative which was initiated with the support of the UN Secretariat at the UN-DPI Symposium on Peace in the Middle East, Lisbon, 2010. Read more