Page 7 - aruba-today-20220701

A7
LOCAL Friday 1 July 2022

Bilateral meeting between minister Ursell Arends and Kingdom

minister of Infrastructure and Water Management, Mark Harbers

On the second day of
Ocean Conference 2022,
minister of Transportation,
Integrity, Nature and El-
derly Affairs had a meet-
ing with Kingdom minister
of Infrastructure and Water
Management, Mark Habers
from the Netherlands, dur-
ing which gave an update
on various projects and
policies that the minister is
implementing in Aruba.

Furthermore, the ministers
discussed the tree points
brought forward by Aruba
during an interactive dia- a country that is part of the the United Nations. nected via and is depen- and maintain a sustainable
logue, which was focused Kingdom of the Nether- dent upon our ocean. All ‘Blue Economy’.
on promoting and strength- lands – in the Water Con- Minister Arends’ speech at activity, both on the water
ening a sustainable econo- ference 2023, organized by United Nations Ocean Con- and on land has an impact To finalize, Arends said: “We
my based on the ocean. the Netherlands together ference 2022 directly and indirectly on are here to learn from each
Particularly for Small Islands with Tajikistan. This will take As minister of Nature, Ursell the marine health of the other, to better our exper-
Developing States (SIDS), place next year in New Arends gave a speech dur- water that is around us. A tise and to fortify our ties
adaptability and transition York. ing the meeting “Interac- big portion of our econo- with international partners.
towards sustainability is of According to a govern- tive Dialogue 5; Promoting my is dependent on the We are glad to be able to
the utmost importance. ment press release, it was and strengthening sustain- health of our ocean, its share our story, how we are
They had a conversation a fruitful day during which able ocean-based econo- water and beaches which supporting the Kingdom of
about exploring opportuni- they elaborated on various mies, in particular for Small are our touristic product. the Netherlands in its ef-
ties for collaboration y also ways for Aruba to start, am- Island Developing States Through the ocean we also forts to promote a holistic,
to share best practices and plify and accelerate action and least developed coun- generate our drinking wa- collaborative strategy with
expertise with each other. to reduce pressure on our tries”. ter through the process of a focus on ‘source-to-sea
ocean, while adhering to desalination. For us, there approach’ to identify and
Finally, they discussed the the World Sustainable De- “Aruba, as a Small Island is an enormous necessity regulate the contaminants
participation of Aruba – as velopment Goals (SDGs) of Developing State is con- to ensure that we create which reach our ocean.”q

Aruba back to normal after tropical wave

After the latest meeting with
Crisis Team, prime minister
Evelyn Wever-Croes gave
a press conference at the
offices of the Disaster Man-
agement Bureau, during
which she announced that
from noon yesterday all
measures taken for the bad
weather were eliminated,
and Aruba is back to nor-
mal.

“The words that Aruba, Cu-
raçao and Bonaire are safe
are words that I wanted to
hear from the beginning,
when we saw these three Regarding schools, ini- “I thank every citizen in
islands were under threat of tially was announced that our country, which even
being caught in the storm”, schools would be closed though we were in difficult
the prime minister said. on Thursday and Friday. This moments, private sector
is no longer the case, see- had to close their business
From yesterday noon, all ing as there is no need to and citizens had to stay
measures were eliminated. keep schools closed on Fri- inside, kids couldn’t go to
Commercial sector was up day as well. Crisis team had school, and each citizen
and running and back to contact with school man- with a civic behavior fol-
normal. The public sector agement and most also in- lowed the rules that were
was doing the work to set dicated that they wanted give. And we are safe so
the systems back up so that to start school today, con- that today we are back up
today they could provide sidering they have a lot of and continue recupera-
service without interruption. work pending. tion”, Wever-Croes said.q