 I want to welcome you to this session titled Racing Against the Clock, The Water Crisis. I'm Molly Anders, Global Development Reporter and UK correspondent for DEVEX, the media platform for the global development community. We have a Herculean task ahead of us, I think, for this session. We have only an hour to come to grips with the challenges posed by extreme water scarcity in the Middle East and North Africa region. And also, we have to make at least some headway in highlighting what works, including public-private partnerships, cross-border collaboration, new technologies and strategies for modernizing what can sometimes be clunky governance when it comes to water regulation. Just some quick background for everyone. We're all sitting right now in the second water poorest country in the world. Jordan, along with Syria and Iraq, are battling desertification whereby impossible conditions are eating up arable land that would otherwise be used for agriculture. In the MENA region, agriculture uses about 85% of the region's water, a figure that is exacerbated by poor agricultural practices like over-arrogation or the government's subsidy of water-heavy crops. The UAE is on track to deplete its freshwater resources in less than 40 years. It's incredible. And Yemen, which suffered from low water reserves anyway, has now seen its water weaponized as civilian populations are now routinely deprived of regular access to food and water by warring factions. And just as water scarcity doesn't respect governments or conflicts or borders, it also doesn't respect sectors. For example, the impacts of climate change on water scarcity and the absence of strategies for mitigation and adaptation could lead to a 14% drop in the region's GDP by 2050. It was said at the World Bank's free meetings this year that without long-term and comprehensive sustainable water management strategies, there's simply no way we can achieve the Sustainable Development Goal to end hunger by 2030. If everyone in the world had access to clean water, deaths caused by diarrhea, which is the second biggest killer of children under five, could be cut by 34%. Also 34% more adolescent girls globally would stay in school past the age of 12. Farmers could increase yields. Daily commutes could be cut short, freeing up water bears for more meaningful activities like going to school or starting a business. I think you guys get the idea at this point. We could keep going, but I think we should probably turn to solutions. So I wanted to kick us off by taking a quick poll. I'd like to see a show of hands for which of the three following solutions you believe holds the greatest potential to reduce tensions stemming from water shortages in the Middle East and North Africa region. Okay, so I'm going to read the options and then we'll do a show of hands. Question one, greater cross-border collaboration in shared watershed areas, so at the public and private level. Number two, increasing the amount of available fresh water through seawater desalination, atmospheric water capture and water imports. And three, reducing water use and improving efficiency through smarter water systems. Okay. So give me a show of hands for those of you who think greater cross-border collaboration in shared watershed areas at the public and private level will actually bring us the greatest potential to reduce tension stemming from water shortages. That's pretty good. So number two, increasing the amount of available fresh water through seawater desalination, atmospheric water capture and water imports. Okay, a couple. Mm-hmm, all right. Number three, reducing water use and improving efficiency through smarter water systems. That one's good. I think that one sort of encompasses a lot of different technologies. Okay, interesting. So I think that was one or two. I'm not sure. There was a bit of a balance between one and three, I'm sorry. But we actually took a Twitter poll as well and found online 635 people voted and the winner was new technology, the second option. So seawater desalination, atmospheric water capture and water imports. I think the answer is all of the votes. I think so, too. And only 10% said less water use, so we saw a similar balance here, I think. Excellent. So you all reflect the Twitter mind, I think as well. Lovely. So to tackle this, we have a really great group of people here gathered to talk us through it. So to start, we have Roland Ang. Roland is the managing director of High Flux based in Singapore. He manages business development in the Middle East including Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE, Jordan and Iran, develops and implements, build your own and operate waste to energy project. I'm really looking forward to hearing more about this. Singapore's largest and it was awarded the prize given by Singapore, the government I think was awarded to High Flux by the National Environmental Agency, authorized, he's the authorized general manager in charges Middle East and hydrochem Saudi. Roland, I'm looking forward to hearing how you envision tech solutions in water management being replicated elsewhere outside of Singapore and about your experiences innovating within the limits of government regulation. That will be really interesting. So next we have Sanjeev Chathas, CEO of Asia, Middle East and North Africa at PepsiCo. Sanjeev is responsible for overseeing all aspects of PepsiCo's food and beverage businesses across Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, Australia and New Zealand which together generated retail sales value of 23 billion last year. Sanjeev has held a wide range of roles since joining the company in 1989. So you're a Pepsi veteran, a passionate advocate of water conservation and water security, Sanjeev led PepsiCo India to be the first beverage business worldwide to achieve positive water balance and played a key role in PepsiCo being awarded the prestigious Stockholm Water Award for industry. And I wanted to add to that in Jordan, PepsiCo in the last two years achieved its 2025 goal of replenishing more water than it consumes through manufacturing in the country. Further, Pepsi is donating snacks I've just heard to the Siddharthi and Azraq refugee camps. And I've just heard that those snacks have arrived at the convention center and will be sent over to Azraq and Siddharthi camps by the end of the conference. So next we have Fayaz Husaini, managing director of Shuruk in the Palestinian territories. He is an international business development executive with a passion for delivering what's next and improving what's now for companies that value innovation as a market advantage. In a fast-track career through transformational leadership in Savvy, he's had measurable impact on revenue, market penetration, and product innovation at Shuruk and elsewhere. Last, but certainly not least, we have Maxine Pasek, who is executive chairman of WaterGen. Maxine is a globally experienced results driven leader and currently the executive chairman of WaterGen, as I said, he plays an instrumental role in leading the key projects in drinking water technology with the focus of creating innovative solutions that meet the diverse needs of the society and enabling the delivery of a reliable supply of high quality potable water, generating facilities to customers around the world. So obviously we have a wealth of expertise here. I think one area we can probably kick off is public-private partnerships. I think each of you have some lessons for us in that regard. So I wanted to ask first, how can public-private partnerships be leveraged to alleviate the Middle East water crisis? Pretty simple. What are the actions private actors can take today? So maybe we can start with Sanjeev on this one. What do you think, Sanjeev? Well, I think you've very well articulated the crisis that we are in. The fact is that I think everyone will agree there is too little being done across the world related to the water crisis that we are facing. The issue is pretty grave. It concerns all of us. And unfortunately, no one person or organization or even government can go it alone. It is a multi-sectoral issue. It is a multi-ministerial issue. And my experience has been that's the reason why it requires a much more holistic framework to be able to really make serious progress. And that is where partnerships come into play. To have a holistic, to have comprehensive, and to have a multi-sector perspective to be able to drive progress. Every one of us has a role to play. Each one of us has a certain capability and a competency, whether it's new technologies, or it is funding, or it is process or monitoring, implementation, the list goes on. And that's been our experience, that partnerships are a powerful way forward. We have small pools of excellence today. How do you make that a tsunami of change is the task at hand. And honestly, that's been the experience with PepsiCo as well. We believe we have an important responsibility. We know us probably more as a beverage company. We are in fact a larger food company and therefore a pretty significant agricultural company. So we have a fair amount of experience and, importantly, a fair amount of responsibility to do with water, as you rightly said, agriculture accounts for 80% plus. In fact, almost 85% of this part of the world as well. And I'm proud to say that we have made some good progress. We set goals. We set goals in 2006 or 2015. And we've been able to achieve and beat those goals. Goals in terms of water efficiency, improving water efficiency by 25% all over the world, and improving water efficiency by 50% in our part of the world, here in MENA, specifically as well, moving to positive water impacts in countries like India and Jordan as well. I'm very proud to say. And providing safe access to safe drinking water to 9 million people. And we've set goals for the next 10 years now. But I have to say that that would not be possible. None of that without partnerships. So we have a tremendous number of partnerships. We obviously operate in many, many countries all over the world. My part of the world is about 50, 55 countries. And we have partnerships with NGOs like Save Water Network, Water.org, WWF, The Nature Conservancy, the WBCSD. The list goes on. Many, many small, local, regional, non-government players as well. We partner with academia, with the likes of the Columbia Earth Institute, Cambridge University. We partner, obviously, with water equipment suppliers, technology companies, like many that we have around here in the room as well, without whom it would not be possible. And above all, we partner with governments. Indeed, here in Jordan, it's thanks to the partnership with the government and the Ministry of Water and Agriculture, they've been able to focus on what a treatment, you know, doing water replenishment, rainwater harvesting through ponds, check dams, and the like. And therefore, what my message is, it is partnerships that are going to get us there. We need to really focus on more action-oriented work. Everyone understands the crisis. We need to make a lot faster progress through partnerships. Excellent. Yes, Sanjeev and I were just speaking yesterday about this, that there is a lot of talk at this conference about drawing in private sector and forging those partnerships. But yeah, we need to talk really about action-oriented solutions, how to kind of get started, how do you go back from this conference and get started today? So, like somebody else to jump in on public-private partnerships, Maxine, would you like to talk about that? I think that the technology that we have and the product that we have can really solve the biggest problem of the boat is the shortage of the clean drinking water. I think that we have created something that nobody can believe till he is coming and drinking our water. It's pure clean drinking water, safe water from air. So actually, it's no additional sources of the water in the water that you can drink. Only 1% from the water is drinkable. The rest is not. So from where the people will take the water in 20 years, it will be 2 billion people in the planet that will have the shortage of the clean drinking water. We have now fights in India, in another country, for drinking water. So when we are speaking about cross borders, we are Israeli company and we have a lot of water technologies in Israel. Our company would like to share with our products everywhere, doesn't matter where, in India, in China, in the Arab states, in Asia, doesn't matter where, because 2.3 of the world has problem of clean drinking water. I am confident that our company and our products can solve this problem. And the start of this is very important to start with our region, because I believe that our technology can solve the problem of drinking water and can make the collaboration between countries much better, because you cannot do in the one day everything very fast. But you need to start step by step by step by step in order to build the trust in our region. And I would like to use this stage and to call to every leaders around the region to take this technology to their people, because the water is the first thing that the human being need to drink. And we can provide it. So we can bring our products to everybody, doesn't matter from what country they are, because this is a basic human need, and we need to bring it to everybody as fast as possible, because the time is human being lives. And now our technology can solve it. Thanks for that, Maxim. And I think innovation, and we know that it's here in the region, it requires really strong conducive environments, regulatory environments, and governments to welcome that. So yeah, I mean, those collaborations between public-private, I think, are crucial, and must have been crucial for you for WaterGen as well. Does anyone else want to add something about public-private partnerships and how these are foraged fias? Well, that's a complex thing, right? And when we talk about the PPP, I agree with frameworks and so on, but I think the idea is to act now, and frameworks will follow. The reason I say that is we are at a crossroad where the crisis is here. Water shortages, water problems, don't happen overnight. And we're all aware of that. And for many years, we've always heard the next border in the region will be over water, right? And we've seen so many worse. So it's still out there, right? PPPs have to happen on cross-border. Governments need to be able to sit down and talk to each other and see how they can help each other. Water affects us all. It stores the economy if there's no water. It impacts health. It actually is a security concern. And most important is that also it allows the technologies to come in and transform the private sector and so on. When it comes to working with the private sector, in the case of our work, we felt that we needed to do something. And when we set up Shirook, Shirook was designed to bring in private sector-led mentalities from the investment banking. And we brought people from Dubai, Mackenzie, and so on. We formed this entity. And we felt that when it came to water, we needed to address the elephant in the room, which is 2 million people in Gaza have just run out of drinking water. Gaza is in a very dire situation. And it's a hotbed. And in many ways, we view this situation to be the testbed. Because when we talk about public-private partnership, we have to deal with a Palestinian authority, the Sitzit Ramallah, which is the recognized authority. We have to deal with Hamas, which sits in Gaza, and they run the strip. And we have to deal with Israel, which is the overarching authority there. And they have security concerns. So we're dealing with three government bodies, not one. And when we talk about how do we provide a solution, we felt that we needed to address the drinking water first and then scale up from that. To do that, we had to partner with global companies that are willing to look at this as not just another global tender, but there's a lot to do. What do I mean by a lot to do? I'll give an example of working with Hiflux from Singapore. Hiflux is one of the leading companies. It's active in the region. And we share a common partner in some of the facilities in the region. When you work in Gaza, you have to deal with something called the dual list. Dual list is a list of things that you're not allowed to bring into Gaza strips, which are deemed to be a risk to Israel's security. So now we have to devise a water solution that does not require steel pipes, because these could be used to be missiles. So we engineer things in such a way with entities like Hiflux and say, OK, where can we have polypipes? Where we can do something else? Chemicals may not be allowed in. So can we change the process? There is no electricity in Gaza. How to address that? So when it comes to the private component, it's actually you need private sector companies that are willing to re-engineer everything and address what we believe is the gasification of the processes and re-engineering. And this is where the private sector come in. Once we have a proof of concept and the plant is viable and it will do what it's set out to do, we go and raise the finance for that and we structure the partnerships and set up the SPVs and get the approvals going. Then how do you deploy? Gaza's water network is about 60% leaking. There is no PPA, I'm sorry, Water Purchase Agreement backstop guarantee in this case. So we start by saying we start with a model of cash and carry. We deliver water. We create smaller water companies that are either going to do the bottling or the ship transportation or the distribution of sashes. So it's quite unique in the sense in the back end to produce water you have the highest technology and the front end is very low tech. There is no 3G in Gaza, we can't apply app so we use mobile scratch cards to top up your water payments because you don't want to carry cash on a daily basis. So you have to innovate. Now the broader picture, we look at technology as like a water gem because how can we harness the atmosphere? Gaza is a coastal city, they have humidity and you need to look at beyond the cell. The cell is the solution that we will start to address the problem is but how can we scale up? Tomorrow we have a situation, there's a ban on membranes. So we're out of business. We have to look at alternative. Alternative is harnessing the atmospheric humidity. There is very little rain in Gaza so what do we do? We now are looking at how to convert sewage water into portable water in that case. Or you release portable water from other uses like agriculture and so on and you focus and drive other water and to do all of that we need global companies to come in and basically not push a product but actually design a product. And this is going to be the norm for the region. Most of the water needs are in conflict areas like Syria, like Libya, like Yemen. So we are building a group of motivated global companies to come in and say well I'm committed, these are the frontier markets. These are the opportunities. The convention opportunities will remain there but this is where the stability of the region will come. This is the components that will drive the peace and economic development. So in that sense it needs convening all of these people and saying look, we need to innovate. There is no one size fits or there is no one solution. And we look to include entities like Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola and so on. There is a distribution component. There is the front. How do we deliver it to the client? Because ultimately everybody has to come in and take a piece in that. On the public sector side, I think the governments need to sit back, provide the land, provide all the facilities needed, and let us work quickly. We're not doing their job for them. We're actually trying to ensure that there is stability in the country, economy grows, and so on. So we are, by definition, partners with the government, if you will. Excellent. And Sherouk, I think, really does serve as a model because you're on the front line in the sense that you have to innovate constantly, as you said, because of restrictions. So that means that you're at the cutting edge, really, of a lot of this technology and could be a model, as you said, for water conservation in conflict or fragile states. We are worried about how the region will recover. And will the region recover in such a way where we believe that this is a sustainable recovery? Because if you look at Iraq today, ISIS is going to be out. You're going to have a huge humanitarian crisis there, which means that the reasons that made ISIS prevail there, and it's actually a war to get them out. So you're actually going to take the people in the worst situation. So how do we move? Governments, and I apologize, offend everybody. It's not a political statement. But we view that the governments who will come in into these areas are not necessarily very stable. I don't think there's an appetite by the, I would say, the donor governments of the region to go into the $4 billion investment to do this. I think it's going to be directed, fragmented, distributed, and such. For that to work, I can't come and say, my D-cell technology, which was devised for Gaza, will work in Mosul, because then you have to find, what's the water source? Is it an aquifier? And if it's an aquifier, or it could be water-gen humidity, if there's a sufficient humidity. But then we have to deal with power. And then you have no water grid, and so on. So we view Gaza, the hardest things are the only things that are worth doing. And I think the learning and working in Gaza, you have a reality. No drinking water today. Two million people need it. Infant mortality is on the rise. Kidney disease. And it is a security concern. People, a generation will have all kinds of diseases. They have to be treated. There is no medical treatment. So it comes to sort of a balance, where you say, OK, it may be expensive to produce a cubic meter of water at $3. Well, if you don't produce it, add medical care and all of that. It's about $28 per cubic meter. So it's not a zero sum game if you don't do water. It's a feasibility. It's the act now, but you have enough time to improve and scale up and reach the profitability level. And I happen to say, working with these companies, I see companies motivated. It is compelling. When you say two million people don't have drinking water, if you have a heart, you need to do something. But it has to be sustainable. You can't give them bottled water on a daily basis. And if you're a savvy businessman and you have a mind, two million people don't have drinking water. It is a business sense. But it only works for the companies that have a heart and a mind to come in. Because the bounty is a bit longer term. However, the opportunity and the reason that's going to come, it's very similar to a Gaza type situation. Weak central governments, no infrastructure, lack of power, not a lot of capital looking at that. And this is where we're saying, Gaza remains a low intensity combat situation where you can innovate more. And from there, we want to spread this knowledge. And similarly, with power, Gaza has no power. We cannot produce power in Gaza. We're looking to produce power and bring it to Gaza. So we keep working with the private sector to find innovative ways to solve this. And if we are successful in Gaza, I think we could be able to make a change somewhere else. Absolutely, yes. And I think we'll touch more on the cross-border aspect of this, because I would like to know the ins and outs of how we can replicate that elsewhere. Excellent. And Roland, while we're still on public-private partnerships, would you like to add something about how Singapore in that environment has kind of become the city on the hill when it comes to water conservation? I think Singapore started the PPP concept somewhere in the 2000 era. If you go around the world, PPP is still relatively new in certain countries. For example, in Saudi Arabia, they do not have a PPP structure. They've been basically paying for a desalination plan, signing a check-in. That's it. That's how they procure their desalination plans. Countries like Oman, which has been having desalination plans for the last 10 years, have moved very rapidly on the PPP model. And it's proven to be very successful. Why? Because I think there are two parts to the whole PPP concept. One is the engineering side, which is the technology side. They select the best. And second is basically the financial engineering, which means to say they get the cheapest cost of funds from sovereign fund companies from all over the world. So combining these two together, they normally get the best of both worlds. What the government then does is basically improve on the governance, improve on transparency, improve on their facilities and pipeline management and all those things. So the PPP concept works basically for countries like Oman, where today the country invests practically zero. But they have water. The resources come at very high volumes. In Saudi Arabia, as you know, they've been paying for their products to just signing a check. And for the last 20 years, with the oil prices at all time high, they purchase their plants at $200,000,000, $300,000,000. And because they say that they want the security to be in house within themselves, so they do not allow basically PPP concepts to be flourishing. But today they're looking at it is because I think they believe that in the IWPP, which is the water and the power side, there's no necessity to have too much security. Because I think what's important is if you put the correct framework of a PPP concept using correct landers, correct legal people to structure the model. And if you get a good funding for the funds, things will work very nicely. And prices of water will definitely deplete to a lower level. Today we are talking about, let's say, US $1 per cubic meter. Those days you're talking about 150, 160. So PPP does help basically on this cost control and all that. Coming back to high flux basically, I think we are basically a Singapore homegrown company. We had modest beginnings. Our founder was often, I think her objective basically is to do something with water because water is life. And I think that the message that we bring across to the world is basically affordable water to everybody. Today I think high flux basically produces about 1.3 million cubic meters per day in all the, in several countries like Algeria, Oman, Saudi Arabia, China, and Singapore. So our contribution basically is to see how much we can support, for example, the Gaza water carriages. So we're working closely to see how to bring the water prices down to give the most efficient in order to increase the labor workforce so that there's work for people, provide training, water academy, and value at basically the way people are living today. That's basically where we feel. Cross-border, I think countries like Oman can help, let's say Gaza, because they have their expertise. And Singapore, the Singapore government can also help basically on their PPP concept to the water authorities, the public utilities authority, and all this. Absolutely. It's amazing how these things really do intersect. The conversation about cross-border collaboration and technology is so important, I think. Yeah, so I think easing into this conversation about what tax solutions are out there now and what's working and how can we adapt them to specific contexts. Maybe it's a good opportunity actually to show that little short video about water gen and that technology and atmospheric water capture. I wonder if we can take a little 30-second video. Just look around you. It's everywhere. We are all surrounded by water. Thanks to Water Gen, a company with revolutionary technology, pure drinking water can be available for everyone everywhere. 10,000 devices could provide enough drinking water for 25 million people without massive infrastructure projects, pipes, or urban water systems, all at an extremely low-cost water gen, bringing water to the world. Yeah, Maxime, talk us through this a bit. And this is a relatively accessible type of technology. Fias has said also that it's accessible in many ways in the Palestinian territory, so it has that cross-border element. How did you come to this? And how is this something that we can bring everywhere and make more accessible? I can tell you that this project and this kind of technology and products are fully scalable. So we can make the products from 20 liters per day per household, and we can make it for the millions of cubic liters daily. Why? Because we have different kind of devices. We have small devices, and we have big devices. So we made this technology that we can, it can be fully scalable for water farms, like 1,000 devices connected to the same pipe, 2,000, and much more. So it's fully scalable and can really solve the shortage of clean drinking water per city, per family, per hospital, for armies, for everybody. So what is unique in this technology? So it's cheap, because if you compare the price of the clean drinking water, comparing to what we can provide to the people, it's, in part of the countries, it's 10 to 15 times less than what you have now. So actually what we have created, we have created affordable technology for non-developed countries that are also working in developed countries. First of all, we were started from humanitarian issues, because for us it was important to solve the problem of clean drinking water, because you told exactly correct. It's 1.5 million kids every year dying under age five from the problem of clean drinking water, 90% from diseases coming from problem of clean drinking water. So actually we can solve this. And we came to this because it was very important for us to solve this very big problem. And we can bring the solution, as you saw in the movie, also for the city, also for the country, and also for the regions. And it's fully affordable. So the cost of the producing of one liter of clean drinking water is 1 kilowatt per one gallon. So it's very cheap. The capex of these devices, the cost of these devices will be very cheap comparing to the clean drinking water that they produce. The level of the water is the best mineral water that you drink, because what we are doing actually, I will explain now it's working, this technology. So we're taking the air to the device. We're cleaning the air. It's very easy to clean the air. It's very complicated to clean the water. So the air is clean inside. We make this air. We're cooling this air in order to take it to the dew point and to extract the water from the humidity, from the air. We're treating the water. And you have the clean drinking water. So the device is not only providing you the clean drinking water. They're also cleaning a lot of air, because it's taking the bad air. It's taking out the good air. They're drying the air. And also, don't forget regarding everything, the problems that plastic bottles making for environment. So also we take out everything what is related to the plastic bottles. We take out everything what is related to the infrastructure that you need if you have problems. For example, don't go far and go to the undeveloped countries. Go to the United States. It wasn't happening in the United States. You have several states now that have problem of clean drinking water like Flint, Michigan. So what are the authorities are doing? They're providing them the bottling water. What for? We can put our devices and we can totally solve the problem till the authorities are changing the pipes. They can drink our water from the air and they can go to the shower from the regular water. Daily we see, even in the United States, the newspapers, the problem of lead in the pipes in New York, in Chicago, in California, we can totally solve it. We are not dependent in any kind of pipes. It's totally independent technology. And this technology is also working with solar panels. So actually in India where they have the problem, not only in India, it's too soft of the world. Where they have problem of clean drinking water, it can also work with solar panels. So where you have the regular electricity, it will work with regular electricity. And when you don't, for example, in Africa, you can connect it to solar panels and to have the cleanest drinking water that you have. So it's fully scalable, very simple solution. And what is most important, it's immediate solution. You don't need to wait decades in order to do it. And if you compare, for example, our technology to desalination, desalination is very good technology. But it's good technology when you have the good pipes. If the pipes are bad, and this is too soft of the world, it will not help you because if you will put the cleanest water in the world in the pipes, when the people will get the water, it will not be good water. So this is the issue. And as I told you, even in the States, in the most developed country in the world, they have problem of water because also the pipes, they starting to be older and they had a lot of lead. Look in California, it's a fifth or sixth economy in the world. They also have problem of water. And entire state is depending on the rain. So it's not making sense. And what we can contribute to all the world is this kind of products that what is most important is fully scalable from small unit that can solve the entire drinking problem of the country. For example, like in Asia, it can really solve the drinking problem of the entire region. So the people can continue to take the regular water from the pipes and to drink our water. It's much, much cheaper and much, much safer because you don't have any bacteria, you don't have anything because it produces when you see it. So it's a lot of saving of the transportation, plastic, etc. And the byproduct is cleaning a lot of air that is the second problem of the world. It's the cleaner that a lot of diseases coming from this. So we have also another technology that we have in our group that also cleaning a lot of air, some vertical farming, but maybe it will be for the next stage. Yeah, that's the panel down the hall, I think. Excellent. Sanjeev, I want to ask you, what are the types of technology that you're really watching at the moment? You're keeping tabs on this, obviously. And I want to hear about your sort of most exciting prospects that you see out there in the water conservation space and how we can overcome some of those barriers to access. Yeah. Firstly, I think there's no dearth of exciting technologies. Water-gen sounds really exciting. We keep coming across and using many different technologies. So it's interesting. Gatorade bottles in Chicago are now washed by air. The potato that we use in potato chips, guess what? A potato is 80% water. So by doing a closed loop cycle in terms of process, we are trying to create a plant that doesn't need any water. All the water comes from the potato and gets recycled, reused, and so on and so forth. In Saudi Arabia, there's a new technology that we're piloting right now which is based on a plant-based polymer which absorbs and retains 500 times the water and therefore releases it at the appropriate time, at the appropriate pace for the agricultural project and is reducing water consumption by some 15% to 20% increasing yields by another 15%. The list goes on. I think the key honestly is, and there are many, many others, exciting technologies all the time, I think they'll always play a great role. But I have a point of view. And my point is we need to, you know, you started off by talking about the massive crisis in the world. We have to address the critical issue. The critical issue is agriculture. 85% of water consumption is in agriculture. Guess what is the most inefficient use of water? It is in agriculture. And the poor agricultural farmer, the small-holding farmer, does not have the way with all, all the money, all the process by which to use these technologies to access them to deploy them. So I would urge that we all need to really focus on the big issue and really harness all our resources to address that big issue, right? I'll give you one example. The innovation part that we talked about, you know, technology is one in India. In PepsiCo, we used to, earlier on, do a lot of paddy cultivation. And guess what? We were able to save about 30 to 40% of water used in paddy cultivation. I don't know if people in the audience are aware, but rice is obviously, firstly, one of the most intense crops. To grow one kilogram of rice needs 1,500 liters of water. In India, that was 3,000 liters. If you visualize a paddy field, what do you see? You know, you see a flooded field, right? Flood irrigation. The reality is that's not necessary. So we started off something called direct seeding for rice. The reason why paddy cultivation was used was because they grew the sapling, the plant, the sapling. The sapling got access to oxygen, carbon dioxide, whereas the weeds got stifled because they were underwater. That's not required right now. And as a result of that, now there's a huge amount of water saving. And if you quantify that, if half of India's paddy cultivation uses direct seeding for rice, India will save more water than all of Indian industry combined. Now that's something worth going after. Similarly, I take the example of so many other technologies, drip irrigation. Drip irrigation reduces 40 to 50% water in agriculture against conventional methods. Why are we not making greater progress on drip irrigation? Today, about 10% of agriculture uses drip. There are some countries and partnerships which are enabling that to happen at a faster pace. Others are not. Obviously, the costs and the capital involved is a big barrier. But guess what? If water is a scarce resource, then why is water free for most of even agriculture? Why do we not as a combined leadership identify the solve there rather than frankly having a very political agenda which prevents water from being valued for what it is? So I really believe it requires a holistic policy to be able to drive much greater focus, reform as well as progress. And honestly, we were just discussing, I really look up to Singapore as being a great example of that. Singapore obviously hosts the Singapore International Water Week, and I've been attending it three or four times. And it's fascinating to see what Singapore has been able to do by having an IPEX body, which is responsible for overall overarching water policy. I don't know if people are aware, but Singapore, despite being an island, is water short. Very heavily reliant on Malaysia. And guess what? The deal runs out, I think, in 50 years' time or something. 2061. 2061. So they have a strategic plan for the next 40 years to become water sufficient. And they've gone all out, including they've converted the entire island of Singapore into a catchment area. They've converted the rivers into reservoirs. They've blocked off the rivers so that they retain the fresh water and enable that to sort of feed the aquifers. You talked about wastewater treatment, they're doing that right now. And they've got something called new water, which basically is sewage water, which through membrane technology, outstanding technology, again, leveraging technology is able to solve. And they pass every single child in Singapore to spend a day to the new water museum, because guess what? That child 10 years later is gonna have to consume that water. So there are ways to go about it, but the critical piece is to have a holistic policy, to have an apex body, to combine as a partnership and really focus on the big things. Excellent. Well, and do you wanna respond to this actually? And I think, especially if you could talk a little bit about how to overcome those kind of issues of water waste as sort of a national practice. How do you incentivize people to stop using these wasteful methods? How can the government change the way that it plans those incentives? Okay, I think for Singapore, our case is pretty unique. While you go to Singapore, you land in Singapore, you don't see the crisis, but it's like a duck on a lake, but it's really moving very quickly underneath. Our water crisis derives basically 40 years ago. Our main water source basically comes from Malaysia, okay? The first contract ran out in 2011, and we've got another one that's running out in 2061. We decided to go into desalination, but desalination was basically the forefront of mass, produce water for the whole population. But I think for water conservation, what we have done is all our household areas today, our drains are all covered. All our major drains, canals are all covered. And all this water basically is streamed into a large pond, if you may call, and it's basically filtered, basically it's new water. Not necessarily just sewage water, but drain water and rain water and whatever. So collectively, all this water goes into a common area. But it has taken us a lot of money for the infrastructure because if you go to the housing areas today, you don't see drains, you just see pavements, but underneath they are all drain pipelines and all that. So basically that's what we are doing. For the new water, I think for certain religion, it's taboo to drink new water. But people do not know that when you go to London, the water is seven times recycled that you drink from the tap. Nobody knows that because nobody makes you aware of that. So what we have done basically is this, for the new water, a major part of it, 80% goes into the electronic industry, which is using a lot of very high purified water. 30% or 25% is basically going back to the reservoir and basically being cultured in the reservoir, mixed together with the normal water and then refined and then go back to the pipeline, which then you don't really feel that it's going through the natural way again. So I think Singapore basically is a showcase whereby you can really see where technology is. We embrace everything. In Singapore, you cannot win every project because you're a Singapore company. We have got Spanish people who win contracts. We've got Chinese people who win contracts because it's a democratic country. So with that kind of democracy and that kind of meritocracy that's in the country, your technology is always at an advanced stage. So you just cannot sit down. For example, in high flocks, we feel that we are Singapore based. We cannot just sit down, lay back and say, we'll win the next contract. We have to fight very hard. We have to find the latest technology that's available. We have to innovate. We have to find the cheapest costs to reduce the power consumption of the water. And moving forward, I think we are still looking at every day, every session that we have in the SIWW, whether it's from Israel, whether it's from the Middle East, or whether it's from the US. We embrace all these people because we want the technology to be basically, it's for survival. Water is for survival. It's not something that you can keep and you can use it for yourself. And that's what we are all for. Excellent. You know, I have one last question for Fiaz, really, and then maybe we'll go to the audience for questions. But yeah, I mean, all this, you know, talk about tech solutions is all well and good. But, you know, when you're in conditions that are obviously so much strained and have an issue with getting materials in to the country, you know, you mentioned that private sector partners have played a huge role in innovating and staying innovative in order to find solutions in that context. What are the lessons learned for you? And, you know, what are the key kind of takeaways from what you've seen with Sherouk? Look, made is the mother of all inventions. And I think the, for that to work, you have multi-party stakeholders. Many of them don't talk to each other. And then you have to shift position talks to interest talks and understand. So from, you know, I'll give you a live example. Politics is at the core of everything we do. And this is the, you know, this is how the Middle East is, right? So when we say we need to do a water solution, what does that mean for Israel? It's security, of course, right? If you do you want two million people starved out of water, if there's no security issue, then they need medical care, and they don't, which they don't have, Egypt won't provide on the other side of the border. So I have to come in and get that medical treatment in Israel and so on. So they get to think, right? And, you know, there are certain minds everywhere. You need to just need to find these, where sanity is and engage, right? And what motivates them? And when it comes to the Palestinian, it would be at Halas or the PA, right? It's the issue is basically who is the legitimate authority and so on. That's why we say, look, it's completely privatized. It's actually a water bottling company. It's not a diesel plant and that's not. So we try to find these solutions. What we do in Sherouk, the model is, we actually decouple what we do on that and allow entities like Hiflex to work with their own challenges. Okay, and this is your mandate. And we have three hours of power on a daily basis. There is no running network. We have a dual list you have to deal with and do this. And there's a significant amount of motivation among these companies. And we don't work out of the absence. It's not just Hiflex. We work with companies like CCC. We have a relationship. We extend and I support from PepsiCo. These are players. They are global. They're motivated. They have solutions. The solutions are out there. It's just basically taking it and taking it apart and reassembling it. And that's why we say, this has been gasified. I work with Ahmad in Libya and we're trying to find a solution that we call the Libified solution. The politics there is not different. Multiple factions like we have and they don't talk to each other similar to Libya. They all cover the same geography. We look at Syria as probably different geographies by different peoples or different model. So in the meantime, what we do is we keep the companies busy. This is your man. This is basically the environment you have to deal with. There are many things that are similar. Grids are not there. Collection of money from a central government. Kind of a water purge agreement backstop is not gonna happen. Billions are not gonna come in. There'll be humanitarian work there. That's sustainable, but it's quite important. And this is the entire region for the next 10 years is how do we rebuild that? And we're dealing with basically housing, energy, water, and health. There's education, there's broad infrastructure, ports, airports, and all of that. So we are basically in the position where we're trying to say, this is our model. It seems to work. It has attraction. It is appealing, but one shrew is not gonna solve this. And what we feel is that while we cover the region, there's enough between high flex and waters and that they come and say, hey, there's something in Latin America. We want to do this here. There's something in Southeast Asia and we want to do this. And we're trying to create a culture of corporations will have essentially two bottom lines. The shareholders' bottom line and the social component that they've done good. And this is, my view, as the new sustainability model. And I've always been preaching. In my life, I worked with a lot of many corporations and they come to me and say, what can we do in Palestine? And I say, what do you do? They say, well, I am a solar panel company, but I want to do kindergarten. Doesn't do kindergarten, let's do what you know best. And start small, right? So education companies can do kindergarten, water companies can. And it's not about donating. It's about actually creating a solution, get involved. And the high flex team came from Singapore and stayed in Gaza. I don't think Gaza is a destination that everybody wants to go to. It's complicated to get people. We have a partner from the USA. The CEO of the company insisted that he come to Gaza. And we told him, look, we'll let you in. Talk to your security and insurance. You cover your own thing. I can get you in. And inshallah, I can get you out. You know? But you got to make that decision. And you know, people understand people. And I think it's the realization that the globe, it is what it is today. And I think we need to shed all this, you know, elitist thinking and all of this and get busy. You know, as I told you, water problems don't have an overnight. We are all aware of that, right? You know, a disease can happen rather quickly and you need to react quickly. We need people to cooperate. We need innovation. And again, it's not just the app world and so on. We need to be active on as the lowest level. We need, for example, to find the housing solution and we're working with ACOM and we're working with Linden Goode out of the UK. The tipping point for housing in Palestine is about 100 meters at $40,000 per unit, all inclusive land, you know? We've worked the past year. Now we're about $52,000. So we're still drilling, you know, to bring it down to the $40,000. And that unlocks a lot of things. And again, we, you have water, you have housing, education is moving forward and so on. Then things kind of like start to normalize, people get hope and they don't have to worry, you know? I mean, if I take the gas, you will see kids lining up with pails and buckets, standing in line. There's a tap there, Maxim knows it, Roland knows it. You don't wanna know what the water that comes out of this tap. And you can't drink it because it's salty. We talked about this with Roland this morning. The taste, the people in Gaza, I used to, certain tapes, they kind of brackish water over the years. And it's going to be difficult to give them a better quality taste. It's gonna take time. But, you know, lo and behold, we do one run on the RO, and it's, you know, we're saving a lot of money. So we said, okay, so, do we do two runs and we have a different brand and there's an appeal to that where people can pay a little bit more and cross subsidize, you know? Because we're not about, you know, not competing with Avian, we have no brand, all right? We just deliver the water. But Ken, how do we market and how do we bring in marketing ideas, but forget the high margin, if you will. Forget the brand, forget the vanity component of that. And as Roland said, we actually had to re-engineer technology out to be able to create jobs. And we found out when it comes to water, and it's more expensive, you know, to run and operate. If you, you know, typically you bring in more technology, you're gonna pay more capex. It's actually the opposite. But we said, look, we need to create economies. We need to create some kind of sense of ownership by the community. This is a community. And it's called the Community Water Company, right? Because, you know, you have 57% unemployment among the youth. So if they make $200 a month by devising a distribution network, whether they bring a truck and they take it home where they start bottling companies, we wanna create an economic kind of momentum. We wanna create a new, what we call like a situation, if you will, right? And ideally, you have people who are advanced on the tech side, people who are a bit, you know, crude on that. And we still don't know how people wear the water for cooking, washing your clothes, cleaning the house, you know, washing your car. It's gonna come from. And my view is we're gonna continue to work with the high flex. So it just untreated in Gaza. It gets pushed to the sea. That's millions and millions of cubic meters. It has ludge that can make power, you know, and buy your fuels and so on. Next step is how do you unlock? So it's the entire, exactly as the entire water cycle, how it talks to agriculture, you know. We don't have high tech companies, so we don't have to have super clean water, you know. But at the end of the day, what is the cycle here? And then you come and say, okay, how is it in Libya? How is it in Syria? What do we do in Lebanon? 10 year plan, 15 year plan, you know. And I think in my view, this has to be private sector led, this innovation and so on. And again, there's a lot to learn from Singapore because they are in a situation that is, you know, they don't have water, but ideally they have the capability to innovate more and find solutions more. And then how do we take these solutions and make that the cost in Singapore is acceptable. It's not acceptable somewhere else. So how do we bring, what do we need to take out? We had a chat with Maximist Tim. Any glittery, glammy stuff that you have on the machine, we're not needing it. I'm not gonna pay for chrome trim for Gaza. I'm not gonna pay for a fancy base here. No cup dispensers, you know. How do we break it down and make it just deliver water? And what's unique about the water gen, as Maxim said, that you have the water source. You put the machine on your building. The water is in your building. You don't have to connect to the grid. You have a small one in the house. So we say, yeah, but that work, that takes care of schools, that takes care of clinics, but we still need diesel to dish out the quantities to ensure. So all of that thinking collectively has to be kind of a disruptive and creative and so on. Otherwise, honestly speaking, the region goes nowhere, more conflict, more extremism, and send your kids out. Absolutely, a very pragmatic note, I think to, and I think we were supposed to turn to the audience, but we have absolutely run out of time somehow. No, no, you're fine, not at all. Maybe if we have time for one or two or no. Yeah, I would love one or two questions from the audience. We have a microphone floating around. Any questions? Yeah, please. There should be a mic coming to you. There you go. Rabiya Muhtar, Texas A&M. What I really would like to hear from the panel is to instill values in our water system at a bigger picture. I think Gaz's example is a tragedy, but also Sanjeev brought up the big elephant in the room, which is agriculture. Can we just maybe have a, just what's your opinion on instilling values? And I'm not talking about religious values, I'm talking about values. And the one thing that I haven't heard any of the panelists talk about, which is the ecological water, the water that, the tension among all the competing demands for water, including the environment, which is a tragedy in this region, because we are consumed by the excessive water allocation to other sectors and we forget that the ecosystem needs that water for replenishing and re-reservinating the ecosystem and biodiversity, which is extremely important to the human health and long-term impact to the planet. So the very important aspect, we didn't cover the environmental part of conservation. Who wants to jump on that? I would like to add, as I told before, that our solution is contributing a lot to environment, a lot, because, first of all, it's cleaning the air, a lot of cleaning the air, and it's bringing to the people the clean drinking water. So it's avoiding all the plastic that is making a very big problem for environment, a lot of pollution when you bring this plastic to the people with the tracks. So it's contributing a lot to environment, so cleaning there and bringing you the safe clean drinking water. So I think it's a big contribution to environment. My one point is, let's get governments to value water and price water, because today we're setting a very, very wrong signal. On the one hand, we are saying it's the most scarce resource. On the other hand, we're giving it free. I heard, Ravi, you were telling me about an Indian politician who promised to give solar pumps free if he won the election. Guess what's happening? He won the election, unfortunately. Guess what's happening now? The farmers are pumping more water, faster, more than they even require. So we're giving the wrong signals to society. I mean, if it is a crisis, treat it as a crisis, price it for what it is, the real value. Today, the tragedy is the poorest person, as we all know, is paying the highest cost for water. So we really need to get together as policymakers and sort ourselves out first, in my view, and provide the right value for water. Excellent. Great point. I agree completely in the sense that I, persons don't see value in water grids as much. And when it comes to power, it's a different story. You need to evacuate, right? But my view is, yeah, nobody's addressing how to replenish aquifers. I'll take you back to Gaza. We need 200 million MCMs, so 200 MCMs, or 200 million cubic meters a year. Half of that is needed to replenish the aquifier. And the aquifier is shared between Israel and Gaza. So how do we do that? And we had a discussion at breakfast this morning, is that what can sewage water play, because it's sitting there. And it's a long process to get sewage water to be potable. It's got to start with agriculture. And you have more sewage than you need for agriculture. So again, yes, to your point, governments are not holistic in their thinking, very short-sighted when it comes. For example, you see a lot of governments that do sewage treatment plants, and then the water is done. But that's like valuable resource. You actually paid money, and you're still dumping it. In the West Bank, we're doing a project where we actually pump and collect that into reservoir as we devise a plan, how to, what levels of purification, and where to push it to farmers, and what type of crops will benefit from that. So yes, maybe in a year or two years from now, private sector companies will start to develop the national plans of, you know, and do the government role, and maybe privatize all of this sector completely. And people need to pay for water. It's not, it's a national, it's like security, it's like everything, it's a national priority. So some payment is warranted at minimum to stop abuse and at minimum, you know, to create some kind of responsibility within the community. This is not something you waste. Absolutely, I think it's critical that water be integrated into thinking around domestic resource mobilization, as well as environmental conservation, as we said, but in an equitable way, right, so that the poorest people aren't paying the cost of that water. Great. You know, I think we have to end, but I think everybody should feel free to, you know, go after our panelists here after the panel and ask them questions, and I think you guys would welcome that. Of course, so yeah, absolutely. Thank you all so much. Thank you.