Riyadh, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, during its presidency of G20 in 2020 focused on the general theme “Realizing Opportunities of 21st Century for All”, which included three main items: Empowering People, Safeguarding the Planet and Shaping New Frontiers.

During its G20 presidency, Kingdom had a big and important role in reviewing points of view of the Middle East and North Africa, in addition to those of the developing countries, especially that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia believes in the importance of global cooperation in reaching useful solutions for all peoples of G20 to face these challenges and creating opportunities for humanity in all the educational, health, technological, economic and environmental fields, in addition to thinking of challenges that might face the world, such as the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Also, during its presidency of the Summit, several meetings were held among officials of G20 with the aim of boosting joint efforts and enhancing policies and decisions that can contribute to solving the most difficult challenges among G20 member states, including the water field.

The Final Declaration of the G20 Leaders’ Summit (Riyadh Summit) in 2020, for the first time included a full paragraph on water, which reads: “We acknowledge that affordable, reliable, and safe water, sanitation, and hygiene services are essential for human life and that access to clean water is critical to overcome the pandemic. We welcome the G20 Dialogue on Water as a basis to share best practices and promote innovation, and new technologies, on a voluntary basis, that will foster sustainable, resilient, and integrated water management.”

The efforts of the Kingdom, during Italy’s presidency of G20 for 2021, resulted in launching the G20 Water Platform, which the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has established and will be hosting and supervising in its first five years. The platform was launched during the second Dialogue on Water meeting hosted virtually by Italy.

Source: Saudi Press Agency