Press Conference on Launch of International Year of Water Cooperation
The global community
should recognize the vital importance of water cooperation to peace,
security and the achievement of Millennium Development Goals, experts
said today at a Headquarters press conference upon the United Nations
launch of the International Year of Water Cooperation.
The General Assembly, in
2010, had proclaimed 2013 to be the Year — one that would serve to raise
awareness and prompt action on the multiple dimensions of water
cooperation, such as sustainable and economic development, climate
change and food security. World Water Day, on 22 March, would also be
dedicated to water cooperation.
“We are inching towards a
water crisis,” warned Csaba Körösi, Permanent Representative of
Hungary to the United Nations, noting that water resources had remained
unchanged for 1,000 years, but that the number of users had since
increased 8,000 times. With global food production projected to
increase by 50 per cent by 2030 and with 70 per cent of water
consumption going to agriculture today, “2.5 billion people will very
soon live in areas of water scarcity”.
The Ambassador, whose
country would host a World Water Summit in early October in Budapest,
went on to state that more people died from water-related problems than
from metro disasters combined and that by 2020, more than 60 per cent of
the world’s population would live in urban centres where access to safe
drinking water, sanitation and wastewater management would pose a heavy
challenge.
While stressing the
importance of more equitable access to water, better wastewater
treatment, improved technology and governance, rapid capacity-building
and cooperation, he also emphasized the need for better data collection,
monitoring and assessment. “Water used to be more of an area of
cooperation than the source of conflict,” he said, adding: “It should
be so in the future”. Sustainable development goals for water should be
designed to avoid a looming crisis.
Mr. Körösi noted that when
Hungary had the European Union’s rotating presidency two years ago, a
strategy had been adopted, establishing a framework of cooperation among
19 countries that went well beyond hydrological issues and encompassed
transport, agriculture, food production, water quality, culture,
infrastructure, disaster preparedness and cooperation all over those
sectors.
Ana Persic, Science
Specialist at United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) Office in New York said her agency had been chosen
to lead the International Year of Water Cooperation, not only because
of its involvement in many water-related projects, but also because of
its multidisciplinary mandate covering education, culture and
communication. “It is important to see water, not only as a technical
issue or an issue of access, quantity or quality, but also as a social
and cultural issue,” she said.
Noting that water
cooperation was vital because 40 per cent of the world’s population
lived in river and lake basins comprising two or more countries and
90 per cent lived in countries that shared basins, she said: “wherever
you build something in one country upstream, you will absolutely have an
impact on the countries downstream”.
Ms. Persic agreed with the
Ambassador that water had been a source of cooperation, noting that
since 1948, there had been only 37 incidents of acute conflict, while
295 international water agreements had been signed over the same
period. Enhanced water cooperation would contribute to poverty
reduction, sustainability and peace, among other benefits. Stressing
the need to share best practices, she said many events were being
planned worldwide to mark the International Year, providing
opportunities to “unpackage” relevant issues and repackage them.
Paul Egerton,
Representative of the World Meteorological Organization to the United
Nations, said there were high levels of water stress in many countries
and rapid climate change would further increase water variability,
further enhancing vulnerability. There was a need for supply- and
demand-side measures to address water challenges to climate change.
Desertification, drought, or flooding could significantly impede
development. He encouraged Member States to coalesce around a
sustainable development goal on climate-adaptive water strategies.
This year, the issue of
water security would become increasingly relevant, because “water
scarcity triggers migration, refugees, situations where basic human
rights are weakened or threatened”, he said, adding that those issues
had great relevance for maintaining the peace and security of regions
under environmental and political stress.
Last September, at the
start of the sixty-seventh General Assembly session, a side event had
highlighted the increasing danger of conflict related to future water
resource issues in climate-vulnerable and politically sensitive regions,
he said. It was encouraging that later this week the Security Council
would hold an informal discussion on “climate security”, he added. The
recent events of Hurricane Sandy in a highly populated and developed
region had been “a wake-up call” that most of the world’s biggest cities
were in proximity to coastlines that could be subjected to severe
flooding.
The World Meterological
Organization would co-host a high-level conference in Geneva from
11 to 15 March, with a focus on national drought policies. In addition,
WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud would chair a conference on Water
and Disasters on 5 and 6 March, hosted by the United Nations
Secretary-General’s Advisory Board of Water and Sanitation and the
Japanese Mission.
In order to transform
knowledge into action, he continued, WMO had launched a global framework
for climate services, to bring the providers of climate information and
observations closer to the users of that data and to enhance
forecasting, risk assessment and management.
Responding to a question
about regional water disputes, such as one involving countries along the
Nile and a dam dispute between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan,
Mr. Egerton said WMO and UNESCO were aiming to bring scientific and
environmental aspects to the fore, instead of focusing on political
elements.
Mr. Körösi described this
year’s water cooperation efforts as particularly important because they
would help formulate sustainable development goals and the post-2015
development agenda.
When asked about the role
of UNESCO in water-related efforts, Ms. Persic said her agency would not
tell Member States what to do, but rather facilitate processes.
Responding to a query
about China’s “hegemony” over water resources in Asia, Mr. Egerton said
he would not discuss an issue involving a particular country but
pointed out glaciers in the Himalayas were melting due to climate
change, resulting in downstream consequences.
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11 Feb 2013 - Participants: Paul Egerton, World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Representative to the United Nations and Ana Persic, Science Specialist, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Office in New York.
