If there is something that is evident, it is that there can be no life without water. So much so that when science searches for life on other planets, confirming the presence of water is the first criterion taken into account. However, in the one we know best, the Earth, one in four human beings does not have access to clean water and almost half of its inhabitants do not have adequate sanitation. The blue planet is also the place where the climate crisis and overexploitation have led to 3 billion people already suffer from water scarcity.
Despite the fact that civil society, together with scientific institutions and multilateral organizations, have been warning for years about the depth and enormous impact of the global water crisis that we are going through, it has taken almost half a century for the United Nations to hold a new World Water Conference to address it. Finally, more than 6,500 people, representatives of governments, companies, multilateral organizations and social organizations, met from March 22 to 24 in New York to promote, as António Guterres saidUN Secretary General, “a bold action agenda for water, which gives this vital element of our planet the commitment it deserves.”
However, the feeling of delay was the majority among the attendees. Years have passed and we are far from being on the right track to meet Sustainable Development Goal number six (ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all) by 2030. The Decade of Action for the Water 2018 – 2028, promoted by the United Nations, is on its way to its halfway point without significant progress. Meanwhile, Nearly one million people die each year from diseases related to water consumption. in poor condition and due to the lack of proper sanitation and hygiene.
The success of the World Water Conference can only be assessed as relative. The absence of a consensual declaration, excluded from the beginning of the agenda to avoid tensions and facilitate joint work, reduces the political weight of the results.
At the conference in New York, they talked about common challenges, political ambitions and commitments to face the water crisis. It is undoubtedly good news that water is finally rising to the forefront of the global political agenda and the obvious importance of its relationships with health, sustainable development or the climate crisis is recognized.
It is also important that civil society has succeeded in getting the demands contained in the Manifesto for Water Justice that have been supported by more than 500 organizations around the world: it is time to protect and manage water as a common good based on global governance that has human rights as its axis and in which women have a central role. Despite not being included in decision-making about water, they are the ones in charge of supplying their homes in many rural areas of the world.
However, once the lights were out and the last few speeches had been made, the success of the Conference can only be assessed as relative. The absence of a consensual declaration, excluded from the beginning of the agenda to avoid tensions and facilitate joint work, reduces the political weight of the results. The commitments of resources and actions, which, according to what was announced in the final Plenary, reach 300,000 million dollars, are, despite everything, far from the figures estimated to achieve SDG 6 in 2030. They are also voluntary commitments, and there is no For the moment, there is no mechanism to ensure that they are fulfilled, nor do they really involve new resources.
Hopefully the new figure of the Special Envoy for Water, as well as the numerous voices that demand a formal and stable space in the United Nations to address the water crisis, are signs that guide towards a solid global governance structure for water, which increases its relevance politics and connect with other key spaces such as the Conferences (COP) on climate, desertification or biodiversity.
Much remains to be done, and it will be civil society that continues to demand a clear agenda committed to the right to water and its sustainable management, not only to leave no one behind, but to put the most vulnerable people first. The newly created People’s Water Forum and the Manifesto for Water Justice They exemplify well the ability to articulate networks and generate proposals of a global civil society aware of what we are at stake, both in rights and in the sustainability of our planet.
We need to put the human right to water at the center of the response to the water crisis, prioritizing it over other interests of a business or political nature
To push in this direction, several Spanish organizations have joined forces to promote the campaign #WaterForAll*, with which we demand a fair and sustainable way out of the water crisis. We address our demands to the United Nations and to the governments that have met at the Conference, but especially to that of Spain. Although this has played a minor role in New York, it must reinforce its commitment to the universalization of the rights to water and sanitation. We play a lot in it.
We need to put the human right to water at the center of the response to the water crisis, prioritizing it over other interests of a business or political nature. It is also urgent that Spanish Cooperation rise to the challenge and strengthen its commitment to the rights to water and sanitation, especially in rural areas and in the most vulnerable regions of the planet. It is time for a new Water Fund for Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the regions where the water, climate and food crises converge with the most intensity and dramatic consequences. All of this must be done while ensuring that the aid actually reaches where it is needed and by legislating so that the social responsibility of our companies, both inside and outside the national territory, includes mandatory policies and actions that prevent water hoarding.
It is urgent. We cannot afford another half century of delay.
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