The United Nations World Water Development Report 2023: partnerships and cooperation for water

As the UN system's principal authoritative report on water, the United Nations World Water Development Report 2023 directly informs the UN conference discussions, describing how building partnerships and enhancing cooperation across all dimensions of sustainable development are essential to accelerating progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals for water and sanitation (SDG 6) and realizing the human rights to water and sanitation.

Water scarcity is becoming endemic as a result of the local impact of physical water stress, coupled with the acceleration and spreading of freshwater pollution. As a result of climate change, seasonal water scarcity will increase in regions where it is currently abundant - such as Central Africa, East Asia and parts of Sout America - and worsen in regions where water is already in short supply - such as the Middle East and the Sahel in Africa. On average, 10% of the global population lives in countries with high or critical water stress.

The coordination of climate and water agendas is bidirectional. On the one hand, climate policy-makers need to better understand the needs of the water community to adapt to climate change. On the other hand, water policy-makers need to proactively reach out to climate stakeholders to better understand how climate-led processes work, and to integrate water-related climate risks into national water policies, strategies and implementation plans.