Israel & World Bank Sign Water Tech Deal

Israel signed a deal this week with the World Bank to provide water-technology knowledge and expertise for use in the developing world

Under the deal, Israel has committed $500,000 to the World Bank Group's Water Global Practice to enhance water knowledge in developing countries facing complex water security challenges.

The deal will also see Israeli water experts travel to countries to present technologies and techniques to prevent water waste and to reclaim resources. Delegations from abroad will also come to Israel to observe first-hand Israeli innovations in areas such as desalination, water filtration and sanitation, drip irrigation and more.

Israel, located in one of the driest regions in the world, has been dealing with an ongoing shortage of water. This scarcity has worsened over the past years, due to prolonged droughts and to an increasing population. To tackle the issue, Israel has developed innovative approaches — to the point where much of the country's water now comes from desalination or filtered and recycled water.

Drip irrigation, for example, was invented in Israel, and two of the world's biggest drip-irrigation tech firms — Netafim and NaanDanJain — are Israeli. With drip irrigation, farmers water their crops using the precise amount of water needed, instead of just releasing large amounts onto a field (known as "flood irrigation") and hoping for the best.

Drip irrigation can save as much as 90% of the amount — and expense — of water used for crops, and is relatively inexpensive to implement. NaanDanJain, which is active in India, even offers local farmers "pay as you go" financing, with drip-irrigation systems paid for out of the money they save on water usage.

However, according to Rafi Mehudar, one of the entrepreneurs who developed Netafim into a major supplier of drip-irrigation technology around the world, only 5% of the world's farmers use it, with the rest relying on traditional flood irrigation.

It appears that even if the farmers did not come to that realization themselves, the World Bank has come to it on their behalf. The Bank has many programs to help finance the urban and agricultural development of countries, but it's not a charity; it expects to get paid back when it loans billions to its clients. In order to ensure that this happens, the Bank runs dozens of programs to help countries learn how to more efficiently and effectively feed, educate, employ and provide health care for their populations.

Source: The Times of Israel

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