Private sector optimizes National Water Strategy

Blue Gold aims at cutting
costs and household bills

Blue Gold, a five-year plan to optimize the National Water Strategy proposed by the Government, will be launched by the Civic Influence Hub (CIH) on December 10, 2013.

The CIH is a group of non-political local businesspeople working to unite citizens around socioeconomic policies. The Hub is chaired by Ziad Sayegh, former national policy advisor of the International Labor Organization.

More than 35 experts in hydraulics, law, finance, and agriculture worked on developing this initiative. It will collect citizens’ signatures to promote its initiative.

The initiative calls for establishing a National Water Council. It aims at supporting the work of the commission appointed by the Council of Ministers to study the new Water Law. It will also establish a body to monitor the correct implementation of water projects.

The initiative proposes reducing the cost of the National Water Strategy from $7.3 billion to $5 billion until 2020. The National Water Strategy aims to balance supply and demand. The original funding scheme involved contracting loans from international and public institutions. Blue Gold proposes private sector funding with transparency mechanisms. It will cut costs by reducing the number of dams required to increase the drinking water supply.

Blue Gold proposes reducing annual overall water cost per household from $700 to $380 on average.