News

Water for the future

by By Ranjita Biswas 21 Jan 2015, 10:43 am

Zaragoza, Spain, Jan 17 (IBNS) The three day session of 2015 UN-Water Annual International Conference comes to an end in Zaragoza, Spain, on Saturday.

More than 300 participants from the civil society, academia, experts in technology and legal aspects, business sector,  media and communication, came together to take stock of the  UN-Water Decade Programme on Advocacy and Communicationon  and go forward to post 2015 implementation with the motto “ From Vision to Action.”

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), water and energy, water and urbanization, are some of the issues  that  the UN  office supported  for   the International Decade for  Action: " Water for Life" 2005-2015

Though water  availability (lack of) and management  have been  a point of discussion among the environmentalists, experts and implementing authorities, the problem has been  less focused on  in the public domain, whereas  climate change has become  a more familiar topic. But  this is interrelated to the crucial area of water availbility and use in all its dimensions,  experts pointed out during different sessions.

Some quick facts: Worldwide around 2.2 million people die each year from diarrhoel disease, mostly children under the age of five in developing countries; an estimated 748 billion people do not have safe drinking water; 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation i.e more than 35% of the world´s population; two thirds of the worldÅ› population will live in water-stressed countries by 2025 if the current pattern of consumption continues, according to UN sources.  Water shortages have been identified by industry, government, academia and civil society as one of the top three global risks today.

During this decade of Ẃater for life', issues like  women and childrenÅ›  áccess to water, womenÅ› vulnerability in countries where they are the prinicipal   carriers of potable water due íts unavailability at home, also got included in the agendaÅ› focus areas.

In 2014 the UN Open Working  Group proposed a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) to Énsure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all´.

The Zaragoza conference reminds that it is time to move on beyond  the SDG and take action on this crucial issue.