20 March 2018: At the Eighth World Water Forum (WWF8) in Brazil, ministers from more than 100 countries called for urgent action on water and sanitation, and the Global Water Partnership (GWP) launched a campaign to accelerate progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goal on clean water and sanitation (SDG 6). The WWF8 Ministerial Declaration welcomes the participation of judges and prosecutors in the Forum for the first time, urges better coordination of UN activities in support of water-related goals, and encourages governments to strengthen their own national integrated water resources management (IWRM) policies and plans. The GWP campaign calls for integrated policies, as well as for increased financing for water management and governance.

The WWF8 Ministerial Declaration welcomes the participation of judges and prosecutors in the Forum for the first time.

WWF8 is taking place from 18-23 March, in Brasilia, Brazil. The ministerial segment of the conference took place from 19-20 March. The Ministerial Declaration invites the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) to note the outcomes of WWF8 when it reviews SDG 6 at its next meeting in July 2018, in New York, US.

The Ministerial Declaration also invites the UN system to strengthen its support to countries in water matters and encourages governments to take action in line with SDG 6, including strengthening their own subnational water institutional arrangements, where appropriate, and working with stakeholders to foster partnerships, confidence building, and information exchange. It further calls for developing nature-based solutions to address the most pressing water and sanitation challenges, encourages transboundary cooperation, and emphasizes the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation. The Declaration affirms the work of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), including its International Hydrological Programme (IHP), in working with youth to implement water education policies and best practices on water and sanitation.

The GWP’s call for action focuses on policy integration, financing, and an inclusive, multi-stakeholder approach. The campaign announcement highlights the need for creating an enabling environment for good governance, which in turn can guide good investments, describing this as “the best insurance policy” for speeding up implementation of SDG 6 and other water-related goals. GWP highlighted the needs in relation to global water supply and services, noting, for example, that almost 1,000 children die every day from diarrheal diseases caused by unsafe drinking water or poor sanitation and hygiene. Further, globally, water is used for irrigated agriculture, which accounts for around 70% of all water withdrawals, and energy production, which accounts for 75% of all industrial water withdrawals.

WWF8 is a broad multi-stakeholder forum spanning political, thematic, regional, sustainability, and citizen’s processes. Besides the Ministerial Declaration, other outputs from the ministerial segment of WWF8 (the political process) include independent moderators’ reports from six high-level roundtables that discussed climate, people, development, urban issues, ecosystems, and financing. [WWF8 Press Release on Ministerial Declaration] [WWF8 Political Process Web Page] [GWP Campaign Web Page] [GWP Campaign Announcement]