No climate-resilient future without sanitation
At the forefront of most water-related conversations about climate adaptation is the need to secure large amounts of water for various use or control water levels to avoid ravaging day-to-day life and ecosystems. Water pollution arising from unregulated and improper human waste management is largely missing in this discourse.
During the upcoming UN 2023 Water Conference, a partnership comprising states and non-governmental organisations is working together to elevate the links between pollution, sanitation, water quality, and climate resilience.
Together, the partnership is calling for urgent attention and action for #Sanitation4ClimateAction.
Because even if the world is making good progress in connecting much of the world’s population to a toilet, 44% of domestic wastewater is being discharged into rivers and lakes without proper treatment. This percentage is likely to increase if we don’t take intentional steps to make our sanitation systems and services more resilient to the climate hazards of flooding and droughts.
Environmental and ecological destruction and multiple public health crises are not far-off realities if we don’t give sanitation adequate attention and resources within the globe’s Water Action Agenda and foras like COP, the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF), and others.
On Friday, 24 March, during the UN 2023 Water Conference, join government agencies, development banks, philanthropic organisations, and international non-government organisations amplify the message that:
There is no climate-resilient future without a concerted broad-scale effort to improve the entire sanitation chain, in urban and rural areas, and across all settings.
An invitation
This side event is led by the Government of Zambia, and brought to you by 26 other government and non-government partners.
State representatives and non-governmental partners that signed on to this Call to Action:
Ministry of Water Development and Sanitation, Zambia
Local Government Division (LGD), Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Co-operatives, Bangladesh
Ministry of Water and Energy, Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
Ministry of National Development Planning: Directorate Urban, Housing, and Settlement, Indonesia
Ministry of Water Supply, Government of Nepal
Government of South Sudan
Ministry of Water and Environment, Uganda
Ministry of Water, Tanzania
Ministère d’Eau et Assainissement (MEA), Sénégal
German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW)
Africa Union Commission (AUC)
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI)
WaterAid
World Bank
Resilient Cities Network
Asian Development Bank (ADB)
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)
African Development Bank (AfDB)
GIZ
Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA)
SNV
Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney (UTS-ISF)
World Health Organization (WHO)
UN-Habitat
International Water Association (IWA)