In February 1993, the Committee on International Waters of the International Water Resources Association (IWRA) and the United Nations University convened a Middle East Water Forum in Cairo, Egypt. The Forum was supported by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation of Japan and the United Nations Environment Programme. It was a ‘closed’ event, participation being strictly by invitation, though its attractiveness was evident from the fact that all the 27 experts invited in their personal capacities attended the event. The background papers especially commissioned for the Forum have just been published as a book by Oxford University Press (Biswas, 1994). Through the generosity of our sponsors, this book is being made available to 1,000 key figures in the field of Middle East water issues.
Following the Forum, and in order to address the need identified by many of the Forum participants for a group of independent and objective, internationally recognized experts who could work parallel to the current negotiations on the water resources of the region, a Middle East Water Commission was established. Membership of this multidisciplinary Commission consists of the undersigned A.K.B. as Chairman, Dr John F. Kolars (University of Michigan), Dr Masahiro Murakami (Nippon Koei, Japan), Dr John Waterbury (Princeton University), and Dr Aaron T. Wolf (University of Alabama). The work of the Commission is supported by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation.
By Asit K. Biswas and Aaron T. Wolf, 1994. Article published in Environmental Conservation, Volume 21, Issue 1, pages 76-77. DOI: 10.1017/S0376892900024140