The shape of water for development

|

This page in:

This post originally appeared on High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development website on July 9, 2018.
 

From July 9-18, more than 2,000 representatives from governments, businesses, civil society organizations and UN agencies gather for the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. 


Water touches nearly every aspect of development. It flows through and connects the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by driving economic growth, supporting healthy ecosystems, cultivating food and energy production, and ensuring access to sanitation. We cannot achieve the SDGs without our collective action on water.

Yet today water represents a silent emergency and a risk to our goals of building shared economic progress and sustainable development. The challenges include gaps in access to water supply and sanitation driven by growing populations and rapid urbanization, more water-intensive patterns of growth, increasing rainfall variability, and pollution, among others. The forthcoming SDG 6 Synthesis Report on Water and Sanitation captures the current situation rather succinctly: “the world is not on track” to achieve our water goals embedded in SDG6. 

Billions of people around the world still lack safe water, sanitation and handwashing facilities. An increase in wastewater in many parts of the world is affecting quality.  National governance structures remain weak and fragmented. Rapid urbanization has put enormous stress on agricultural production and water supply. Financing remains insufficient and data gaps in monitoring are abundant.

The World Bank Group is working with our country partners in a number of ways to address these challenges and ensure that water is used wisely to help achieve the SDGs and a water-secure world for all.

To continue reading the blog post, visit HLPF website for the original post: “The Shape of Water for Development”.

Topics

Authors

Mahmoud Mohieldin

Senior Vice President for the 2030 Development Agenda, United Nations Relations, and Partnerships

Pedro Cardoso
July 14, 2018

Water is essential, but sanitation is much more.

Anonymous
July 23, 2018

yes it's true

Ali Kasirye
August 06, 2018

Water is the primary input for sanitation to be achieved. Therefore to me clean water availability is critical for SDG6 to be realised in totality.

Vijaykumar Kedia
July 18, 2018

BLUE WATER and GREEN WATER :
This planet earth is called "Blue planet" , because of
i) Surface-water- 'Above Ground-water' in Sea, Rivers and water stored in Dams, ponds etc. and
ii) Ground-water- Underground water stored in Aquifers a) Confined aquifers ( extracted through a Borewell ) and b) Unconfined aquifers ( exrtracted through a Well).
iii) Then there is Sky water - Rainwater which replenishes both these Surface-water and Ground-water during monsoon .
iv) There is one more form of water called "Green Water" - Soil-Moiture, which is equally important for our survival. This soil moisture is MOST IMPORTANT for plant growth and in absence of soil- moisture Supportive Irrigation is needed in Agriculture.....
..... Agriculture water consumption is more than 80% of total water used Globally.
We need to reduce load of 'Agriculture Water Demand' on our existing sources of water .
We can achieve SDG 6 of sustainble Water development only
if we can save 'Rainwater as Green water, in the form of Soil-moisture in the land where rain fall.

Mohammad Sulaiman
July 18, 2018

Water security and stopping water wastage or overuse by some segments of our country need to be tackled also. This also includes waste and excessive use by many in agriculture is to be controlled.
Use of underground water, especially by households and Industries like cement should be taxed and licensed. This will curb the tendency of many who think water is an abundant resource and its use should be allowed without any controls.

Anonymous
July 18, 2018

World Bank is working to achieve " A Water Secure World for all ."
The World Bank is financing for Water Shed development , Ground water recharge structures since many years ...But ground water level has gone
below & below every year .This shows that either Recharge or structure is fails.
Very few of them may be successful but the ratio is not enough to recharge ground water of area. Hence it is essential to investigate and know the facts/ failures of water recharge & needs research to modify the modes.
I am interested to study/ search / research the matters on practical & scientific manners.of geological,hydralogical,ecological,environmental etc.If anybody has any facts of success/failures of ground water recharge .

vikas
July 23, 2018

water is the most essential for life. we should improve the quality of drinking water.
Most of the people in the word drink and get contaminated water for drinking. water must be safe to drink because it causes many harmful diseases because of contamination. We must prefer the best purifier to drink safe and clean water.

Leroy Essel
August 06, 2018

There is a new "Hydrogen 2.0" technology that can purify polluted or desalinate ocean water as a free byproduct of generating highly competitive clean energy 24/7. The article titled: "Turning Seawater into Electricity" will be generating 450 mega watts of clean energy and purified ocean water as a free byproduct.