Budapest Water Summit (BWS2019) was held on 15-17 October 2019 in Budapest, Hungary with the theme of “Preventing Water Crises ”.  The Turkish Delegation was headed by H.E. Dr. Bekir Pakdemirli.

SUEN President Prof. Dr. Ahmet M. Saatçı moderated the session titled “Water Stress and Migration: Is There a Way to Prevent Crises? on the second day of the summit. H.E. Mr. Bekir Pakdemirli made a keynote speech at the beginning of this session.

In his speech; H.E. Dr. Pakdemirli addressed the crises caused by water and migration in the world and highlighted the burden on the host countries to meet the WASH needs of refugees. Dr. Pakdermirli  shared the unique experience of Turkey, which hosts the largest number of refugees in the World today.  Dr. Pakdemirli stated that more than 98% of Syrians in Turkey live in urban or rural areas together with local populations, thanks to the significant investments dedicated to upgrade water and sanitation infrastructure in host provinces. Dr. Pakdemirli stressed that the main issue is not only to provide water, food and shelter services for Syrians living in Turkey, but also to provide them a life worth of living.

The Panel discussion moderated by SUEN President Prof. Saatçı was participated by represantatives from the Islamic Development Bank, the African Development Bank, the Union for the Mediterranean, the Middle East Desalination Research Center and the World Resources Institute. The steps that can be taken for the prevention of mass migration at the source such as development investments, creating job opportunities were discussed. Another discussion topic was how to reduce the pressure and how to tackle with the challenges developed by the mass migration in the host countries in the field of water.