UN to convene water conference in march to achieve water related goals

New York: United Nations to convene water conference in March to unite the global community to take action and address the broad challenges surrounding water.

The conference will be co-hosted by Tajikistan and the Netherlands, is scheduled to take place at the UN headquarters in New York for March 22 to 24.

The conference is expected to bring together heads of state and government, ministers and other high-level representatives, as well as a wide range of stakeholders from different sectors, said, Li Junhua, UN under-secretary-general for economic and social affairs.

The conference “aims to generate concrete actions and commitments to advance the Global Water Agenda and to secure transformative change in all levels,” he noted.

A main outcome of the Conference will be a “Water Action Agenda” that will capture the ambitious new commitments from Member States and other stakeholders.

A wide range of stakeholders from across different sectors will also take part, as the General Assembly has accredited more than 1,200 organizations representing civil society, youth, women, and the private sector, among others.

“The important thing for us as co-hosts and indeed for the rest of the world are the outcomes of the Conference,” said Sulton Rahimzoda, Special Envoy of the President of Tajikistan for Water. “We, therefore, do not need a Conference with bold statements. We need a Conference with bold commitments.”

“The Water Action Agenda is a platform that collects, displays and follows these commitments at all levels, including from governments, civil society and the private sector from all over the world, he added.

The vision of the Conference is to understand the value of water management and take concerted action to achieve the internationally agreed water-related goals and targets, including those contained in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

While the “Water Action Decade” is an essential enabler for the 2030 Agenda, including SDG 6, additional enhancement of a UN system-wide approach to water is necessary for the achievement of water-related goals and targets and to reinforce the international water voice and cross-sectoral connections.

According to United Nations, today, a quarter of the global population – 2 billion people – use unsafe drinking water sources.

Half of humanity 3.6 billion people live without safely managed sanitation and around  2.3 billion people lack basic handwashing facilities at home.

As per the data, over 80 percent of wastewater is released to the environment without being treated or reused and almost three quarters of all recent disasters are water related, having caused economic damage of almost US$700 billion in the past 20 years.