UN holds rare conference on global water crisis
With water scarce in some areas and abundant in others, polluted or otherwise problematic, the United Nations addresses this week a global crisis that has long gone unnoticed, despite the fact that the welfare of billions of people is at stake.
"It's the first time in 46 years that the world comes together on the issue of water," said Henk Ovink, special envoy for water issues for the Netherlands, which is co-organizing the UN Water Summit with Tajikistan.
"It's now or never," he told AFP, referring to a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
The last high-level conference on the issue, which lacks a global treaty or a dedicated UN agency, took place in 1997 in Mar del Plata, Argentina.
And the situation is critical.
"We messed up the hydrological cycle," Ovink said, adding that he has never been more concerned.
"We take far too much water from the ground. We pollute the remaining water, and there is now so much water in the air that it is affecting our environment, economies, and communities as a result of climate change," he added.
This means that there is drought in some areas and flooding in others, in a cycle that is worsening around the world as a result of human-caused global warming.
According to the UN, 2.3 billion people live in countries with water scarcity today.
In 2020, two billion people did not have access to safe drinking water, 3.6 billion did not have access to toilets, and 2.3 billion did not have a way to wash their hands at home — all of these are poor sanitary conditions that lead to disease.
These conditions are in stark contrast to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, one of which was to "ensure access to water and sanitation for all by 2030."
'Drop by drop,' - "We need to develop a new water economics that will help us reduce water waste, improve water efficiency, and provide opportunities for greater water equity," said Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, World Trade Organization director-general and co-author of a recent report that decried a "systemic crisis that results from decades of human mismanagement of water."
Governments and public and private sector actors are invited to present proposals for a so-called water action agenda at a UN conference this week.
"The Water Summit must result in a bold Water Action Agenda that commits to our world's lifeblood," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.
The conference and its more than 500 related events are expected to draw 6,500 people. They include 20 heads of state or government, dozens of ministers, and hundreds of civil society and business leaders.
Hundreds of projects have already been registered on its website in advance of the conference.
The proposals range from constructing low-cost toilets for millions of people worldwide to improving farm irrigation techniques in Australia and increasing access to drinking water in Fiji.
Organizers anticipate that participants will make commitments, large or small, during the conference.
"Every commitment is of significant importance as it may bring… change for even one household, one school, one village, one city. "As we say, drop by drop, it becomes an ocean," Sulton Rahimzoda, Tajikistan's president's special envoy on water, said at a press conference.
"We cannot have incremental progress, but a plan to fundamentally transform how we manage water for the new climate reality," said Ani Dasgupta, president and CEO of the think tank World Resources Institute.
There are solutions, he added, and "the price is a bargain."
"Securing water for our societies by 2030 could cost slightly more than one percent of global GDP," Dasgupta said.
"And the return on these investments would be enormous, from growing our economies to increasing crop yields for farmers to improving the lives of the poor and vulnerable," he added.
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