The United Nations Water Conference kicked off this week. Co-hosted by the Netherlands and Tajikistan, his three-day event will be held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York and will be the first such event in nearly half a century. Meanwhile, an increasing number of people around the world have access to safe water and sanitation (see A Tale of Two Halves). Globally, about 500 million people are forced to open defecate, and millions more depend on polluted water supplies. Can this meeting make a difference?
Why did it take the United Nations 46 years to organize a water-specific conference?
The simplest answer is that water (as a stand-alone topic) is not high on the international sustainable development policy agenda. At least not so far, says Rachael McDonnell, deputy director for development research at the International Water Management Institute. , based in Rome.
The first United Nations Water Conference was held in 1977 in Mar del Plata, Argentina. Representatives of 118 countries and territories met over his 12 days to launch the Mar del Plata Action Plan. Global water crisis by the end of the 20th century.
Several low-income countries sought financial support, but were denied and instead offered research on how to finance water projects. Nature reported at the time.
In 2015, the international community set a 2030 goal (under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs) to provide clean water and sanitation for all. According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, as of 2020, nearly 2 billion people will not have access to safe drinking water at home, and about a third will have basic hand washing. I don’t have a facility at home. At current rates of improvement, 1.6 billion people will remain without safe drinking water at home by the 2030 deadline.
Water was not a priority at the UN conference on food security in September 2021 or at COP27 on climate change in Egypt last year, said Henk Ovink, the Netherlands’ special envoy for international water issues. He stresses that water needs to take a firm place in the UN follow-up process. These include the UN Food System Stocktaking Moment in Rome in July, his SDG Summit in New York in September and COP28 in Dubai in November. “He can’t wait another 46 years because what’s happening now is so bad it will get worse,” he says.
Where is the crisis at its worst?
Water crises are worst in low-income countries. For example, an estimated 70% of the population in sub-Saharan Africa lack access to safe drinking water services.
Carol Sherfan, director of the Arab Center for Climate Change Policy, a Beirut-based UN-connected think tank, said the conference will help to address water insecurity in vulnerable communities, people in conflict and post-conflict situations. He said it should be a priority to deal with. Drought in Somalia may have killed as many as 43,000 people last year, according to a report released this week by UNICEF and his WHO (see ‘Scorched earth’).
Improving access to water for health care and sanitation is also an urgent priority. Too many people are forced to use polluted water sources (see “Faecal Contamination”). By 2021, one tenth of the world’s health facilities lacked access to sanitation services, and approximately 857 million people lacked access to water services in health facilities. This is also according to a previous joint report by WHO and UNICEF summarizing his 20 years of data on water, and sanitation.
The conference will also discuss plans for countries sharing water resources to communicate more effectively. The Coalition for Transboundary Water Cooperation was launched late last year at the Paris headquarters of the United Nations scientific agency UNESCO. This is especially important for countries in the Middle East and North Africa. “About two-thirds of the Arab countries’ water resources come from outside their borders,” he says. “A cross-border basin-level approach is very important not as a means of creating conflict, but as a means of creating opportunities for dialogue and cooperation and coordination.”
How is climate change impacting water resources?
About half the world’s population is at risk of severe water shortages for at least part of this year, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest (sixth) assessment report released this week. This number is likely to increase due to climate change impacts such as heavy rains, floods, droughts and wildfires. When global temperatures reach 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures, the likelihood of agricultural (soil moisture) extreme droughts is expected to double in many parts of the world.
Will this conference lead to a legally binding water treaty?
At this meeting, the Action Plan on Water will be developed. But McDonnell says this will include “voluntary commitments.” “Nothing is binding, there is no equivalent of Paris [climate] agreement. “Furthermore, there is no major UN agency responsible for implementing and monitoring progress on all water-related SDGs. “We find ourselves in an organizational vacuum,” he said. increase. “We are very busy with water meetings right now, but not so busy with water.”
But it will take years to establish a new treaty or a systematic United Nations body. Instead, the delegation will call for prioritizing water in existing treaties and the UN system.
Some countries will demand more funding, especially in the form of subsidies for projects such as seawater desalination and wastewater treatment. Omar Salameh, spokesman for Jordan’s Ministry of Water and Irrigation, based in Amman, said much of the existing international support is in the form of loans. “However, lending exacerbates financial pressures on an already struggling economy,” he says.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is also expected to step up funding for his plan announced at COP27. The plan will create a climate early warning system in all UN Member States, enabling countries to better prepare for extreme events. Péteri Taalas, Executive Director of the World Meteorological Organization, based in Geneva, Switzerland, is working with Guterres to implement the plan. “We need about $3 billion over the next five years,” he adds Taalas. So far, about 10% of this has been sourced through various sources.
This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on March 21, 2022.
