UNESCO-IHE Alumni Willem-Alexander Addresses Symposium

The Prince of Orange addressed a symposium this week entitled "Water for a Changing World: Enhancing Local Knowledge and Capacity." The objectives of the symposium were “to constitute an understanding of the challenges for sustainable water management anticipated during the next two decades; to identify priorities that need to be addressed in enhancing knowledge and capacity in order to respond to these challenges; to articulate recommendations on the strategy, priority actions, and preferred tools and instruments for enhancing knowledge and capacity; and to formulate recommendations for institutions involved in knowledge and capacity enhancement outlining their roles.”

At the beginning of his speech, Willem-Alexander disclosed to the participants that he was “a member of the class of 1998” and for that reason “the foundation was laid for {his} international water management activities.”

Furthermore, he acknowledged the 50th anniversary of the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education and said: “Benjamin Franklin once said that ‘an investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.’ UNESCO-IHE has been proving him right for the past fifty years. And I hope you will continue to do so, because the challenges we face will only become bigger and more complex. So developing new knowledge on water issues, sharing it, and putting it into practice in a responsible, sustainable way will become even more important than in the past. I wish UNESCO-IHE every success in doing so.”

The Prince of Orange’s entire speech at the symposium “Water for a Changing World: Enhancing Local Knowledge and Capacity” can be read here.

For more information on the symposium “Water for a Changing World: Enhancing Local Knowledge and Capacity,” visit the official website.

Photo: H. de Lijser