About this Discussion

According to the UN, nearly one-third of people globally lack access to safely managed drinking water services, and over half lack access to safely managed sanitation facilities. This lack of access can have potentially significant adverse impacts on people’s health, through water-related diseases, in addition to productivity and environmental impacts. The COVID-19 pandemic has compounded the situation, and has demonstrated the critical importance of sanitation, hygiene and adequate access to clean water for preventing and containing diseases.  

While substantial progress has been made in increasing access to clean drinking water and sanitation, billions of people – mostly in rural areas – still lack these basic services. More needs to be done to improve the situation and achieve one of the Sustainable Development Goals, which calls for ensuring access to water and sanitation for all. The challenge lies in finding a way to use the world’s water more efficiently and make it available to all at a reasonable cost, while leaving sufficient quantities to sustain the environment. Green growth policies in the water sector can address issues of both quantity and quality by encouraging water-related innovation and investment in green infrastructure, and through integration with policies in other relevant sectors.

Water and Sanitation

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UN-Water Update...

“Water is the most critical resource issue of our lifetime and our children's lifetime. The health of our waters is the principal measure of how we live on the land.” Luna Leopold

The current status of water resources highlights the need for improved water resources management. Recognizing, measuring and expressing water’s worth, and incorporating it into decision-making, are fundamental to achieving sustainable and equitable water resources management and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN-Water, 2022).

UN-Water coordinates the efforts of UN entities and international organizations working on water and sanitation issues. There is no single UN entity dedicated exclusively to water issues. Over 30 UN organizations carry out water and sanitation programs, reflecting the fact that water issues run through all of the UN’s main focus areas. UN-Water’s role is to coordinate so that the UN family ‘delivers as one’ in response to water related challenges (UN-Water, 2022).

UN-Water is more than the sum of its parts: it brings together and leverages the input from the UN family and international organizations. One of UN-Water’s key objectives is to provide coherent and reliable data and information on key water trends and management issues. During past decades, several initiatives, mechanisms and programs, both within and outside the UN family, have been collecting information on the various components of the water cycle.

Every year, UN-Water coordinates the UN international observances on freshwater and sanitation. On World Water Day, UN-Water releases the World Water Development Report focusing on the same topic as the campaign.
The SDG 6 Global Acceleration Framework is a unifying initiative that involves all sectors of society to speed up progress by improving support to countries. By recording and sharing actions we can review progress and use the latest evidence on what works, learn quickly from failure and adapt to changing realities (UN-Water, 2022).
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https://www.unwater.org/
https://www.sdg6data.org/
https://www.unwater.org/un-2023-water-conference/
https://www.unwater.org/coronavirus-global-health-emergency/
https://worldwaterforum.org/en
https://www.worldwaterday.org/
https://www.fao.org/publications/card/en/c/CB7392EN/
https://www.unwater.org/publications/un-world-water-development-report-…
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/
https://www.unwater.org/publication_categories/glaas/
https://www.unwater.org/water-facts/ecosystems/
https://www.cbd.int/ecosystem/
https://www.who.int/heli/risks/water/water/en/
https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/water-…
#WORLDWATERDAY 2022

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Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD)

On 11 February (16:00-17:30KST, 8:00-9:30CET) the OECD Secretariat is hosting the side-event "Supporting Green Recovery: Towards a Green Growth in Southeast Asia." The discussion will be part of the OECD Southeast Asia Regional Programme (SEARP) Ministerial Conference and Ninth Steering… Read More

How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the water and sanitation sector in Asia Pacific?
Which areas should be prioritised for recovery?
What opportunities lie ahead post-pandemic?

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https://development.asia/insight/beyond-pandemic-building-back-better-water-sector