Room 2

Water challenges in countries that suffer from water scarcity have become more complex than before, especially in light of population increases, rising standards of living, and an increase in demand for water from competing sectors. In addition, the effects of climate change and complex cooperation with riparian countries sharing international rivers add more pressure, especially with unilaterally adopted decisions that would increase challenges and threaten the stability and peace of the region.

The session seeks to engage to the voices of rural communities, youth, mayors and other local actors, as well as the financial sector in order to include their perspectives into the dialogue on financing water.

These shared perspectives can help shape and influence global initiatives, including the Roundtable on Financing Water and the OECD Global Observatory on Financing Water Supply, Sanitation and Water Security

Water, sanitation and hygiene are at the heart of the balances of ecosystems and societies, an essential factor of biodiversity, food security, health and peace. Public Development Banks have in many contexts proven they can have a catalyst role, not only to finance water and sanitation investments but also to enhance cooperation. This session will be an opportunity to explore their unique mandate and see how they can help bridging the funding gap towards sound WASH investments and achieving SDG6.

The overall objective is to empower smallholder farmers through agroecological techniques to make access to productive waters sustainable and equitable. Provide the tools to turn saving water into a wealth-producing resource and disseminate improved agroecological techniques as tools to safeguard water and soils to benefit agricultural production.

The overall goal of this session is to present and discuss opportunities and approaches to enhance agricultural climate resilience through the scaling of innovative and integrated water management solutions in developing countries.

This session will be dedicated to sharing lessons on successful Naturel based Solutions with potential for scaling up that positively impacts both marine and terrestrial water resources. The session brings together scientists and researchers with potential supporters in government and development to find ways of effecting needed action for domestic and industrial water and food security, as well as ensuring climate adaptation.

Water security, and more broadly, sustainable development cannot be achieved without safeguarding ecosystem health. Current governance approaches can undermine efforts to protect and restore ecosystems and combat desertification. Strengthening coordination across land, freshwater, coastal and marine environments ensures benefits for the source-to-sea system as a whole. Holistic management from source to sea is the surest path toward water security and sustainable development.

The world is alarmingly off-track to deliver universal access to safe sanitation by 2030. Rates of progress need to quadruple to achieve the SDG target and claim the myriad health, environmental and socio-economic benefits that come from safely managed sanitation.
This thematic session with explore the five dimensions of the SDG6 global acceleration framework (GAF) with evidence, actions and successful cases set out in the State of the World Sanitation report.

See below