2015 UN-Water Annual International Zaragoza Conference. Water and Sustainable Development: From Vision to Action

The UN-Water (2014) proposed global goal for water “Securing Sustainable Water for All” builds on and extends existing commitments. A global goal for water is fundamental to all other development goals and the proposed framework applies to all countries.

The targets for the goal for water have important explicit and implicit inter-linkages, making them mutually supportive. For example, improving access to drinking water and ensuring it is fairly shared requires good governance, balancing competing demands, and the protection of natural supply systems from pollution and water-related disasters. Furthermore, the goal for water and its targets is of direct importance to addressing other proposed areas within the post-2015 framework, such as health, energy, food, employment, gender equality and environmental sustainability. The water goal and targets thus directly address the development aims of societies, promotes human dignity and ensures achievements are sustainable over the long term leading to the following development outcomes, amongst others. The benefits outweigh by a wide margin the costs they will incur.

These UN-Water suggestions recognize that water needs both a goal in its own right and consideration in the formulation of other goals. Water is much more than a cross-cutting issue - unless the fundamental role of water and the water issues raised in this proposal can be resolved, other important elements of the new development agenda will be unachievable.

Water and water infrastructure is a vital part of the foundations for sustainable development, poverty alleviation and human well-being. The strong interdependencies between water and other fundamentals such as energy and food require clearer recognition. For example, energy production requires water, just as water requires energy for its distribution, treatment and collection. Food production requires both water and energy. At another level, public health or education can only be attained if the water supply and sanitation services of a community operate correctly. Good water management is also a key determinant in eliminating inequalities and gender bias.

The UN-Water paper (A Post-2015 Global Goal for Water: Synthesis of Key Findings and Recommendations from UN-Water. UN-Water, 2014): demonstrates the magnitude and urgency of the task that needs to be accomplished at the global scale. The size of the population without access to clean and safe water and sanitation is measured in billions of people. The demands for freshwater to meet growing human needs, the imperative for wastewater treatment to preserve and protect water quality and action to arrest the impact of nutrient pollution imply a major step change from Business As Usual.

The Conference will deal with some of the main implementation challenges related to some selected topics for each of the five main targets recommended by the UN-Water proposal on the global goal for water. These are:

A. Achieve universal access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene;
B. Improve by (x%) the sustainable use and development of water resources in all countries;
C. All countries strengthen equitable, participatory and accountable water governance;
D. Reduce untreated wastewater by X%, nutrient pollution by Y% and increase wastewater reuse by Z%;
E. Reduce mortality by (x%) and economic loss by (y%) from natural and human-induced water-related disasters.

The UN-Water Annual Zaragoza Conferences serve UN-Water to prepare for World Water Day. This conference is part of the road map for World Water Day 2015, which will focus on “water and sustainable development”.

The post-2015 international agenda for water will be decided in 2015. The UN-Water International Zaragoza Conference will start the year focusing on how to bring the agenda into action; a practical event on tools for implementation (financing, technology, capacity development) and governance frameworks, for initiating the post-2015 agenda in water and sanitation.

More than 300 participants from United Nations Agencies and programmes, experts, representatives of the business community, governmental and non-governmental organizations will meet from 15 to 17 January in Zaragoza, Spain, to draw conclusions based on existing practice and the exchange of views between governments and stakeholders. This is also the last year of the International Decade for Action ‘Water for Life’ so it is especially important for taking stock of and learning from achievements as well as planning the next steps.

Freshwater is central to all development efforts. It faces rising challenges across the world – from urbanization and over-consumption, underinvestment and lack of capacity, poor management and waste and the demands of agriculture, energy and food production. Freshwater is not being used sustainably according to needs and demands (World Water Development Report 4. WWAP, 2012). Fortunately, many of the water problems are economic, social and political in nature and could be addressed within our power through intelligent and effective governance to optimize water use between different sectors and ecosystems and balance our current and future needs (Measuring water use in a green economy. UNEP, 2012). We need governments, the private sector and civil society to work more closely together and to integrate water as an intrinsic part of their decision-making.

The Zaragoza Conference will provide a space for dialogue around some selected topics relevant to the implementation of the international agenda on water. The Conference will focus on a practical examination of what the necessary transformations are and how institutional change, technology, capacity development and financing can help develop appropriate joint responses. It will look at the essential similarities -learning from each other- and critical differences e.g. regional and country differences. It will draw from practical experience of Member States and stakeholder groups.