Access to water and sanitation has been described as an essential matter of survival and the maintenance of health and well-being as well as reducing poverty and ensuring food security among others.
This was contained in the remarks of His Excellency Mr. Abdulla Shahid, President of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly during the Sanitation and Water for All Sector Ministers’ Meeting in the Republic of Indonesia.
At the meeting under the theme, ‘Building Forward Better for Recovery and Resilience, Shahid said globally more than 2.3 billion people are already in water-stress scenarios, with independent assessments implying a global water deficit of 40% by 2030.
While saying that the world’s current water trajectory paints a dire scenario, the President of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly -UNGA added that several countries are combating threats such as water pollution and scarcity.
With water reservoirs drying up and farmlands becoming barren in every corner of the globe, water scarcity is affecting us all but emphasized that women and girls are affected disproportionately due to the role they often play in agriculture and domestic spheres thereby negatively impacting people’s health and productivity.
According to Sahid, “When water is compromised, women and girls must commit additional hours and effort to acquire water – taking them away from school and income-generating opportunities” he said.
Describing as unacceptable the fact that over 700 children die every day due to poor sanitation and lack of access to safe drinking water, the Head of the UNGA said water scarcity is creating alarming health threats for mothers, girls, children, and newborns.
The conference also established that currently, over 2 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water services and 3.6 billion people lack safely managed sanitation services.
Considering the severe blow COVID-19 has dealt with development efforts including those around water it has become pertinent that all hands-on must be on deck, from the government level to the private sector, civil society, and youth to achieve universal access to adequate and clean water and sanitation.
Sustainable water management according to Sahid would lead to economic growth and better preservation of water ecosystems that is critical towards climate change mitigation and the realization of the implementation of SDG-6 and other water-related universal goals for all as well as eliminating inequalities through realizing the human rights to water and sanitation.
The UNGA President made it known to participants that it will be important to achieve synergies now ahead of the 2023 UN-Water conference.
This year Sanitation and Water for All Sector Ministers’ Meeting is organized in collaboration with UNICEF and the Sanitation Water for All global partnership.
