There is a great consciousness at the government level in Qatar about the need for a water demand regulation plan to reduce water consumption gradually, World Water Council president Loic Fauchon said yesterday.

"Everyone - including agriculture, services, industry and the residents - would be required to decrease consumption step by step," he explained on the sidelines of the 45th meeting of the board of governors of the World Water Council.

Qatar is among the few countries with very little water resource, and hence obliged to produce water, mainly by desalination.

“Qatar’s per person water consumption is around 1,000 litres per day, as against 180 in my country France, or 40 litres in Africa,” he pointed out.

“It will not be the level of Europe in one year, but step by step I am very confident that Qatar will do better.”

Recalling that he has discussed this issue many times with Qatar National Food Security Programme Fahad bin Mohamed al-Attiya, Fauchon observed there is a great consciousness that Qatar has to manage better and consume less.

The WWC president maintained that issues such as climate change, food security, and water issues are interlinked and are part of a global challenge concerning the future of the world.

The Council and its board of governors from more than 20 countries are in Qatar for the first time. Fauchon said the WWC, the most important organisation in the field of water, gathers around 70 governments and 350 international organisations.

“Its role is to try to be the voice of water, it means that we try to convince the political leaders, but also the economic and social stakeholders to place water as a real and concrete priority on the global agenda.

“While some regions including Qatar are facing a scarcity of water, in some other regions there are excess of water, floods. So our role is to help political leaders make water a priority, step by step.

Fauchon said it is important to join food security and water security together, because food programmes cannot be developed without water.

“The governments have to adopt the right to water as a priority. We are entering in a campaign asking for all governments to place water in their constitution, because water is an essential right.

“Secondly, we are saying to the governments that sanitation is also very important. We need to restore to nature, water in good quality and quantity.

Fauchon asserted that civil budgets and not military budgets have to be pushed. Water has to be the first choice, we are pushing for a water priority in the national budgets, but also in the local authorities because in a large part of the world, it is the local authorities that have the competence in water, more than the national governments.

Asked about Qatar’s plan to bid for hosting the 2018 World Water Forum, the WWC president said the process will probably launch in October or November.

“We expect five to 10 countries to present their interest and the time for the actual candidature will be in 2013. The final decision is expected probably in November 2014.

“I understand perhaps Qatar would like to be a candidate. Qatar is very experienced in major bids concerning very great events, so we are waiting for the decision of Qatar,” he added.