Cook Islands’ growing water crisis during dry spells, alongside other countries’ needs, are being addressed at the Pacific Water and Wastewater Conference, held this week Rarotonga.

For months now, Rarotonga has been facing water shortages as a result of fewer showers while some residents, especially those living in higher areas, continue to experience reduced pressure or no water in their taps.

Speaking to Cook Islands News, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Albert Nicholas, stressed that the main focus of this week’s meetings is to amplify their message and ensure it is heard and addressed by the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders.

The 8^th Pacific Water and Wastewater Ministers’ Forum is being held alongside the 15^th Pacific Water and Wastewater Conference and Exhibition.

Nicholas explained that the water and wastewater issues experienced by all of the 20 participating countries at the conference is being taken lightly in the region and internationally and deserves to be addressed.

These issues include access to portable water, sanitation, and others.

“For us it’s the importance of the issue which is obviously water resilience and wastewater as well and I know recently there was an experience of water shortage due to the dry periods. What we experience here is experienced by other countries too,” he said.

Asked about what Cook Islands hope to achieve from the conference, Nicholas said: “One of them really is to help the message get to the Forum Leaders level. How do we encourage and push our leaders to table this at the next Forum Leaders’ Meeting. Those are one of the key points that I would like to bring up at this conference.”

“It’s really about how we can mandate the issue at the leaders’ level and when I say leaders I mean the Prime Ministers, the presidents and all the leaders in the region.

“It’s been an outstanding issue but it seems to be an issue that no one takes seriously at the international level so we’re hoping to achieve a number of things in this forum but we’ll see how it transpires over the next couple of days.

“When a country stands alone, it’s not as strong as in comparison as when the region stands alone on the issue and makes it a point.”

Meanwhile, one of the benefits of the conference to Cook Islands is finding solutions from several professionals and experts from across the region who are attending the conference.

“There’s a lot of professionals from the sector that’s here. This expo will give us the opportunity to meet with those professionals,” Nicholas said.

“There are suppliers from this particular sector, there will be technology that will be on display at this expo and it’ll give us a rare opportunity to speak to these professionals and to cage their experience and advice.”

All the participating countries represented at the conference are represented by leaders, with a few represented by Prime Ministers and most by ministers.