Auditorium

" Context

The primary focus of the session will be to present AfWA with focus on its contribution to empower African private and public WASH operators for better achieving the SDG 6. This session would allow AfWA to showcase of its strategy to scale up programs for high impact in accelerating access to water and sanitation services in Africa.

The objective of this session is to discuss SfN adapted to the Senegalese context and allowing to support the concepts of green growth or green economy in order to reduce the impacts of climate change on the sustainable use of water resources. The panel will present and deepen :
- Challenges and issues related to climate change on water resources in Senegal - Water security and the concept of circular water economy
- Natural solutions to increase resilience to the impacts of climate change

What are the new perspectives on drought in a time of climate change ? Drought is often compared with other natural hazards such as floods, storms, and wildfires. However, unlike these hazards, drought is often a so-called hidden risk, meaning that its onset is not perceived until drought conditions are already having an impact. In many countries worldwide and as a result of climate change, droughts are becoming more severe with higher negative and large-scale impacts. Also, incidences of severe heat waves and short-term dryness (flash droughts) seem to increase.

The Great Green Wall (GGW) project is one of the largest projects to combat desertification initiated and carried out by Africa, in particular by the Sahelo-Saharan States. This project aims to unite the Sahelian States around the issues of combating desertification and adapting to climate change in a logic of sustainable economic development.
The project aims by 2030 to :
- Restore 100 million hectares of degraded land
- Create 10 million green jobs
- Sequester 250 million tons of carbon

Tajikistan and the Netherlands will co-host the UN 2023 Water Conference and they are committed to make it a watershed moment for the entire world. Aline with this commitment, they jointly with Senegal organize the high-level session on the UN 2023 Water Conference in the framework of the 9th World Water Forum to attract more attention and promote stakeholder’s engagement in the preparatory process and the Conference itself.

On 12 August 2021, AMCOW, in collaboration with the UNDP, UNICEF, AUDA-NEPAD, AfDB, GCA, and GWP launched a partnership to convene an International High-Level Panel on Water Investment for Africa.

On 8 September 2021, the Executive Committee of AMCOW commended the effort of the convenors and formally adopted a Decision for the inauguration of the Panel.

The High-Level Panel (HLP) is intended to be a follow up event after the plenary session of the celebration of the UN-World Water Day 2022 organized by UNESCO and UN-WATER about the topic of the UNWWDay Groundwater: Making the invisible visible. The HLP panel will allow to organize a larger and in-depth debate about the UN Development Report 2022 that is presented the 21st of March at the opening with the participation of high-level countries representatives and high-level experts. The HLP is meant to discuss how groundwater can be a response to water security challenges.

The main objective of the session is to promote the Water-Energy-Food-Environment Nexus approach for a sustainable response to development needs.
Specifically, it will aim to
- Promote a better understanding of the water-energy-food-environment nexus concept for the development of synergies;
- To map the relationships and mutual impacts between these different sectors;
- To bring out good practices and innovative solutions to make the Nexus approach operational;
- Define methods of cooperation to maximize the benefits of the nexus.