Tuesday morning, King Willem Alexander, organized a meeting with the Prime Minister of Aruba as well as ministers from other places that are considered to be “Small Island Developing States (SIDS)”. Aruba, Sint Maarten, Bonaire, Curacao, St. Kitts, Barbados, Jamaica, Tuvalu, Fiji, and the Maldives were all present. During the meeting, they focused a lot on the small islands in connection to climate change and issues concerning water.
While all these attending islands are very similar in size and they therefore have similar goals, it turns out that Aruba just so happened to be an exception to the many challenges that all the other islands seemed to be facing. One main point is the issue of obtaining water as an island in the caribbean. As opposed to Aruba, many of these neighboring islands cannot provide their citizens with water 24 hours a day, and therefore have to divide it during the day.
Aruba is lucky enough to have a water purifying plant, which many of these other islands strive to have some day in the future as well. Our water purifying plant WEB offers clean water to everyone 24 hours a day. It is nevertheless a great opportunity for us to realize the importance of conserving water, as it might one day be scarce. As a community, we should all use water conscientiously to make sure that locals as well as our visitors can have clean water at all times.
The Prime Minister thanks King Willem Alexander for organizing this meeting to bring attention to small islands, as they are often overlooked.
