The UN 2023 Water Conference is convened by the UN General Assembly and will take place in New York (USA), from March 22 to 24.
The Conference, co-hosted by The Kingdom of the Netherlands and The Republic of Tajikistan, aims to be a watershed moment, bringing stakeholders from all sectors to create together a global momentum for accelerated implementation and improved impact to advance the broad challenges surrounding water.
A delegation of the World Farmers’ Organisation (WFO), led by WFO Board member Ms Mary Robinson, will join the event, getting involved in several panels and meetings, to ensure the global farmers’ voice will be heard clearly and loud and that farmers’ experiences, needs, expectations and constraints regarding water protection and water management will be taken into account in the outcomes of the Conference.
The main themes of the 2023 UN Water Conference are five:
1 – Water for Health: Access to safe drinking water, hygiene and sanitation.
2 – Water for Development: Valuing Water, Water-Energy-Food Nexus and Sustainable Economic and Urban Development.
3 – Water for Climate, Resilience and Environment: Source to Sea, Biodiversity, Climate, Resilience and Disaster Risk Reduction.
4 – Water for Cooperation: Transboundary and International Water Cooperation, Cross-Sectoral Cooperation and Water Across the 2030 Agenda.
5 – Water Action Decade: Accelerating the implementation of the objectives of the Decade, including through the UN Secretary-General’s Action Plan.
The Conference has the mandate to produce an output document that will be called “Water Action Agenda”.
The Water Action Agenda will be the collection of all water-related voluntary commitments to accelerate progress in the second half of the Water Action Decade 2018-2028 and the second half of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Moreover, in the framework of the Conference, on Wednesday 22, at 3.00 PM ET, the World Farmers’ Organisation will co-host an official Special Event titled: “Radical Collaboration for Water Resilience Action”.
The special event will showcase how new collaboration models can unlock and achieve basin resiliency to benefit communities, ecosystems, and economies. It will inspire change by looking at the journey of water, from its physical source to its diverse values to people. It will explore the enabling conditions that help drive real new collaboration models that focus on integrating voices from across the spectrum from farmers to indigenous people, frontline communities, and women in key processes that improve basin outcomes. It will showcase and dive into the key elements of collaborations at the basin scale that have a real impact. Throughout the 3 hours, the principles of INSPIRE, COLLABORATE, AND ENABLE, will be woven through interactions with all participants.