TEHRAN – The 10th meeting of the UNESCO Regional Centre on Urban Water Management (RCUWM)’s governing board is slated to be held in Tehran on Thursday, during which urban water issues and expansion of cooperation between the region’s countries will be discussed.

To be attended by senior officials from 16 member states, the event is going to be chaired by Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian, IRNA reported.

As reported, representatives of international and regional organizations, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United Nations Development Program, will also be attending the summit.

Sharing experiences in areas such as water management and adaptation to droughts, flood and drought management, improving drinking water quality, irrigation systems, holding training courses, and water engineering, among other topics, are reported to be the major issues covered in the gathering.

The RCUWM’s ninth meeting was held in August 2013 in Tajikistan capital Dushanbe.

The meeting was attended by senior officials from different countries in the region including Iran, Afghanistan, Oman Sultanate, Tajikistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt, Syria, India, and Iraq as well as representatives of international governmental and non-governmental entities including International UNESCO-IHP and INWARDAM.

RCUWM has been established under the auspices of UNESCO since 2002 in Tehran-Iran. The agreement between the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and UNESCO regarding RCUWM has been recently renewed, signed and exchanged for its third period of activities as for 2018-2023.

RCUWM is guided and overseen by its Governing Board (GB) as the most important decision making constituent at the highest level according to the agreement. The Centre’s GB member states were Ministers from Iran (Chair), Afghanistan, Armenia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Egypt, Germany, India, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Syria, Tajikistan, and Yemen as well as UNESCO Director-General during the period of 2002-2017.

EF/MA