The Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu has charged the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to scale up their activities to include the nation’s River Basins as the Federal Government is determined to reposition and strengthen the River Basins for effective service delivery.
The Minister disclosed this on Monday, when the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), led by the Managing Director and Technical Cooperation Division (MD/PTC), Mr. Philippe Scholtes had a meeting with him in Abuja.
The purpose of the meeting according to UNIDO is to discuss ongoing projects as well as projects in the pipeline for Nigeria.
The Minister while responding to the presentation thanked the leader of the delegation for the great work they have been doing in the Water Sector in particular and Nigeria in general. He called on the organization to scale up its activities to include the River Basin Development Authorities.
According to him, “your visit is timely as the Ministry is trying to reposition and strengthen our River Basins for effective service delivery. The River Basins are kind of catalyst for economic growth and your interest for small hydro-power infrastructure development will transform the economic activities of our rural life”.
Suleiman also called on UNIDO amongst other things: to develop alternative energy system apart from hydropower, to interface with industries that are using our resource to avoid water pollution and also to develop capacity to produce local technology in the sector that will be cheaper compared to what we have now.
Earlier, the Managing Director/PTC of UNIDO, Mr. Philippe Scholtes stated that there has been a long existing relationship between the UNIDO and the Ministry in area of small hydro-power projects in dam development and other areas.
To keep with an inclusive development and economic progress of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Water Sector, he called on the Ministry to send their possible areas of collaborations apart from the development of the River Basins for consideration and implementation in their mid and long term projects.
