The United Nations Conference on Water was held in New York in recent days.
The summit closed on Friday 24 March with the commitment by governments, businesses and civil society to allocate billions of dollars to advance the water agendaa point of reference for accelerating sustainable development as envisaged by the 2030 agenda dedicated to it.
The goals for sustainable development
With the aim of theAgenda 2030in 2015 the member countries of the United Nations undertook to achieve 17 sustainable development goals – Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs – to be achieved in the environmental, economic, social and institutional spheres by 2030.
Number 6 of these objectives concerns water, with the promise of ensure access to drinking water and sanitationa basic need for people’s health and well-being, as well as a recognized human right.
However, approx 2 billion people in the world still lack access to clean water and 40 percent of the world’s population suffers from water scarcity. As populations increase, meanwhile, pressure on freshwater is projected to increase by more than 40 percent by 2050.
This is the picture that was the background to the United Nations Conferencewhich focused on the urgency of water crisis and on the many important issues related to it, such as its role in migrations forced, in climate change and in conflictsin the reduction of povertyin the salute and in safety feeding.
The Water Conference
About 10,000 people took part in the summit, both online and in person at the United Nations headquarters, with the aim of intensifying action for waterfacing a crisis water increasingly serious and guaranteeing a fair access to this vital resource.
Jointly hosted by the Netherlands and Tajikistan, the Conference brought together world leaders, civil society, entrepreneurs, scientists, representatives of young people and of different sectors involved, from agriculture to the environment, including energy. Also present were the Italian Minister of the Environment and Energy Security, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin.
Leaders and delegates analyzed issues and possibilities solutionswith resolutions relating to the need for better data collectionto the enhancement of system of governanceto the opportunities of development and funding gaps in the water sector. According to estimates the financial need it is between 182 and 600 billion dollars a year, figures that make it clearer than ever the urgency of unlocking financing and innovative systems to foster large-scale investments.
The agenda
The key outcome of the Conference is theAction agenda for waterwhich he collected over 700 commitments aimed at facilitating the transition to a water-secure world through a more coordinated and effective approach. Other initiatives to be taken later, such as the appointment of a UN Special Envoy for Water.
The commitments set out in the agenda address a wide range of themes aimed at building partnerships and cooperation towards urgent, immediate and accelerated shared action and to establish a strong international mechanism to prevent the global water crisis from spiraling out of control.
«The commitments undertaken in this Conference will push humanity towards a water-secure futurewhich every person on the planet needs,” commented UN Secretary General Antònio Guterres during the closing ceremony.
Along the same lines too Li JunhuaUN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, and Conference Secretary-General: “The 2023 Water Conference brought together a global community determined to make a difference not only for the future of water, but also for that of the world“, he said.
