21 January 2016: UN Water has published a guide on ‘Monitoring Water and Sanitation in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,’ while UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim have launched a high-level panel to promote financing and implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6) on water and sanitation. The panel, co-chaired by the Presidents of Mauritius and Mexico, seeks to promote dialogue, innovative financing and implementation strategies for SDG 6, while the publication provides a framework for monitoring the eight targets under the Goal.
SDG 6 commits governments to ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. Speaking at the launch event, UN Secretary-General Ban emphasized the value of water resources to poverty eradication, saying that the panel will help turn ideas into reality. World Bank President Kim said the panel will accelerate national actions, and will help lay the foundation for food and energy security, sustainable urbanization and ultimately, climate security.
The High-Level Panel is composed of Heads of States and governments from both developed and developing countries. International organizations, including the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), the World Economic Forum (WEF), the World Water Council and the World Resources Institute (WRI), are also cooperating to support the panel’s work.
With regard to follow-up, UN Water launched a monitoring guide that highlights the need for credible data to enable monitoring and inform decision making. In the publication, the authors propose a “ladder approach” whereby countries can begin monitoring water and sanitation targets using simple methodologies, then build on the experience to gradually adopt more complex, disaggregated methodologies. They suggest countries appoint a national focal point and a national inter-sectoral monitoring team to take responsibility for national data collection, analysis, dissemination and reporting. The monitoring team can be comprised of all actors with a stake in SDG 6, including statistical offices, national agencies or ministries and other sector representatives, according to the report.
Discussed in the report, the UN is seeking to harmonize existing efforts on water monitoring through its Global Expanded Water Monitoring Initiative (GEMI), which complements the World Health Organization (WHO)/UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP) and the UN-Water Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-water (GLASS).
According to the report, JMP will monitor SDG targets 6.1 and 6.2 on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene, while GEMI will monitor the SDG targets 6.3 to 6.6 on wastewater treatment and water quality, water use and use efficiency, integrated water resources management (IWRM) and water-related ecosystems. Existing analyses by GLASS, and on IWRM by GEMI, will be used to monitor means of implementation (MOI) targets on international cooperation and participation of local communities. The report lists the full set of water and sanitation indicators developed on SDG 6 by UN Water for the Inter-Agency Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGs), which is negotiating a global indicator framework for SDG monitoring. [World Bank Press Release] [Publication: Monitoring Water and Sanitation in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development] [Report Webpage]