NEW YORK, MARCH 19 – The international community and all stakeholders will gather from March 22 to 24 at UN Headquarters in New York for the second World Conference on Water – to be held 45 years after the first one, which took place in 1977 in Mar del Plata, Argentina.
Co-hosted by Tajikistan and The Netherlands, the Conference can count on the support of UN-Water and the UNDESA Secretariat, and aims to establish itself as a turning point for increasing political and social attention to water-related issues: from the recognition of access to water as a universal human right, to its management and conservation, through priorities in different uses, impacts on human health, on different ecosystems and on the urban and rural economies.
One of the main outcomes of the Conference will be the adoption by all involved stakeholders of the so-called Voluntary Commitments, which will be collected in the Water Action Agenda | Sustainable Development web platform, created in order to show the global community the nature of the commitments undertaken and enabling it to monitor the progresses and impacts achieved over time.
The Minister of Environment and Energy Security, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, will lead the Italian delegation to the Conference. The team will be complemented by technical representatives of the relevant ministries (Health, Foreign Affairs, Agriculture and Forestry) and the main scientific Agencies and Institutions dealing with water according to their mandate (ISPRA, ISS, AICS).
A side event organized by the USSRI (Directorate for sustainable use of land and water resources) of the Italian Ministry of the Environment, in collaboration with the UNESCO World Water Assessment Program entitled: “Partnerships and Cooperation for Water: The main findings of the United Nations World Water Development Report 2023 and experiences from the countries” has been also scheduled for March 22.
The side event will be attended by Pichetto Fratin, and is expected to unroll from the presentation of the 2023 Report and later highlight the importance of Partnerships and Cooperation in water-related issues, also through the sharing of good practices and innovative solutions. Representative bodies of UN-Water (FAO, UNDP, UNIDO, UNEP), OECD, IHP, FAO-Mountain Partnership, the Republic of Tunisia, the Kyrgyz Republic and the Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH) will also participate. (@OnuItalia)
