Kazakhstan Participates in OECD Water Governance Initiative Meeting
Paris, January 29, 2025 – Special Representative of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan for International Environmental Cooperation Zulfiya Suleimenova addressed via video-link the 20th meeting of the OECD Water Governance Initiative on 28-29 January 2025.
Opening the meeting, OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann highlighted the key OECD policies and instruments for ensuring better water governance, and urged the need for comprehensive measures to address the challenges, including the water loss and its plastic pollution. OECD supports its member states and partner countries in implementing policy measures on water management according to the OECD Principles on Water Governance. This important instrument provides practical guidance for all levels of government to design water policies and improving resource management. According to Cormann, the timely taken measures help improve water quality and manage water risks and disasters, for which there is a strong need in sustainable finance and appropriate infrastructure. He called partner countries and other stakeholders to join this important OECD Principles.
Special Representative Zulfiya Suleimenova highlighted Kazakhstan’s increasing engagement in international activities on water management. She shortly briefed the audience on the outcomes of One Water Summit, a joint initiative by Presidents Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan and Emmanuel Macron of France, which took place on 3 December 2024 during the COP16 of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She also highlighted the beginning of the International Year of Glaciers Preservation in 2025, emphasizing their tremendous role as a source of fresh water and the need for consolidating multilateral collaboration in addressing the challenges of the melting glaciers in view of the global climate change. Among the topics raised were biodiversity, transboundary river basins management, supporting research activities, particularly involving young scientists, data sharing on water cycle and hydrology.
During the two-day meeting, the representatives of OECD member states and partner countries, international organizations, research centers, and NGOs discussed the best policies and measures to facilitate sustainable water resources governance, agreeing to continue working closely in this area.
Chaired by Barbara Pompili, Special Envoy of the President of France for One Water Summit, the OECD Water Governance Initiative (WGI) is an international multi-stakeholder network of 100+ delegates gathering in a policy forum to share experience on reforms, projects, lessons and good practices in support of better water governance.