• Submitted by: lena campos
• Politics and Government
• 10 / 17 / 2013

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Cuba is preparing a new law to modernize water management, Orlando Rey of the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment (Citma) said.

Speaking at the First Conference of Strategic Studies, Rey said the lack of the vital liquid and the processes of sanitation and decontamination are key problems in the Cuban environmental strategy.

This Caribbean nation has scant water resources which basically receives through rains and are subject to threats of climatic change, he said.

Referring to the existence of a water crisis in the world, Rey asserted this has repercussions in the food and health sectors and provokes political instability and social conflicts.

There is great inequity in the distribution of this scant resource, with Africa as one of the most critical zones, as persons living with less than one or two dollars per day, occupy an important percentage among populations lacking water, he explained.

He also referred to the irrational use of water, with an intensive exploitation of the underground water deposits which have tripled over the last 50 years and from which depend two billion individuals. Also, over 30 percent of the illnesses are water-related, he said.

The conference "Rethinking a World in Crisis and Change", convoked by the Center of Studies on International Policy and the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations, will end Friday.

Academics and professors from more than 30 countries of United States, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia are attending.

Source: Bernama.com.my