Clean Water & Sanitation

Photo: Boy drinks from a tap at a NEWAH WASH water project in Puware Shikhar, Udayapur District, Nepal. Photo by Jim Holmes for AusAID. Source: Wikimedia Commons

'Right To Water' Should Be A Major Human Right, Say Indonesian Women Activists

By Kalinga Seneviratne

JAKARTA (IDN) – Indonesian women activists, fighting an uphill battle to reverse a 20-year old water privatization project signed by former authoritarian ruler Suharto with French and British companies with the support of a $92 million loan from the World Bank, argue that the United Nations and the international human rights community need to prioritize ‘right to water’ as a major human right.

"We are seeing that a lot of communal resources like land, water, even the air, are not belonging to the community anymore. It’s a shifting of the perspective," argues Dinda Nuur Annisaa Yura, National Program Coordinator, the Coalition of Jakarta Residents Opposed to Water Privatization (KMMSAJ).

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 20 August 2018

Photo: Martin Krause, Director of the Division of Programme Support and Coordination, IAEA Department of Technical Cooperation, attends the UN event on sustainable development in New York. Credit: D. Shropshire/IAEA.

UN Nuclear Watchdog Promotes Global Development Agenda

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – At the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development, concluding on July 18 in New York, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has highlighted its contributions to promoting the Sustainable Development Goals.

Capacity building to 'ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all' as envisaged by SDG 7 was the focus of a training course organized by the IAEA, the world's central intergovernmental forum for scientific and technical cooperation in the nuclear field.

: Santo D. Banerjee; UN INSIDER; 13 July 2018

Photo: Cover of The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2018.

A Sense of Urgency Required For Meeting the 2030 Deadline

By António Guterres

Following is the text of the United Nations Secretary-General's Foreword to The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2018 published on 20 June. With just 12 years left to the 2030 deadline, we must inject a sense of urgency, writes Guterres. – The Editor

UNITED NATIONS (IDN-INPS) – The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development provides a global blueprint for dignity, peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and in the future. Three years into the implementation of the Agenda, countries are translating this shared vision into national development plans and strategies.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; OPINION; 05 July 2018

Image: Map of the Ganges (orange), Brahmaputra (violet), and Meghna (green) drainage basins. Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0

Modi Government's Plan to Interlink Rivers Splits the Nation

By Sudha Ramachandran

BANGALORE (IDN) – As another scorching summer grips India and rivers begin running dry, the government's Interlinking of Rivers (ILR) program to solve the country's water problems is being heatedly discussed.

Drawing attention to the water shortage and unequal distribution of water in the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a strong champion of the program, recently pointed out that while some rivers are in spate others are running dry. "If there is inter-linking [of rivers], the problem can be solved," he said.

: IDN-INPS Asia Editor; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 22 April 2018

Photo: Two young women row in Lake Titicaca, the highest commercially navigable body of water in the world, near the Uros Islands, Puno, Peru. Credit: unchronicle.un.org

UN Intensifies the Quest for Universal Access to Safe Water

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – World Water Day turned 25 on March 22. On that day, as UN-Water noted, 1.8 billion people were using a source of drinking water contaminated with faeces, putting them at risk of contracting cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio.

And, as Global Citizen pointed out, girls and women around the world were being forced to spend 200 million hours collecting water instead of attending school and pursuing economic independence.

Besides, a recent survey of 100,000 facilities found that more than half lack simple necessities, such as running water and soap – and they are supposed to be healthcare facilities. The result is more infections, prolonged hospital stays and sometimes death.

: J Nastranis; SUSTAINABILITY; Clean Water & Sanitation; 22 March 2018

UN Turns To 'Unite Ideas' In Support Of The Global Goals

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – The United Nations is on way to improving tools available for designing sustainable development policies, and building a search engine for people working on solutions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for accessing relevant knowledge on science, technology and innovation.

The UN Office of Information and Communications Technology (OICT) announced on February 12 that a team from the University of Southampton, a public research university in the United Kingdom, had won the Unite Ideas #SDGInsights challenge for its methodology to identify drinking water service in Liberia.

: J Nastranis; SUSTAINABILITY; Clean Water & Sanitation; 19 February 2018

Drought Forces Ghana To Ration Water Supply

By Global Information Network

NEW YORK | ACCRA (IDN) – The state-owned Ghana Water Company Ltd (GWCL) has announced that due to severe dry winter winds (called ‘harmattan’) and the drying up of rivers, water deliveries will be rationed over the coming months while the country awaits the rain.

“We are sorry to inform the consuming public that the situation has led to intermittent water supply in most cities and towns in the country,” said Stanley Martey, communications director of the national company. The rate of evaporation of water bodies nationwide has become alarming and there will be consequences for some communities, he said.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 07 February 2018

Photo: A general view of the Vienna UN Conference. Credit: Robert Bosch AG/APA-Fotoservice/Schedl

Women and Water Inseparable for Sustainable Development

By Krista Price*

This is the third in a series of reports on the Vienna UN Conference from January 10-12, 2018, which discussed actions and challenges linked to the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly 5 (SDG 5) and in the spirit of SDG 17. The Vienna Liaison Office of the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS) organized this Conference co-ordinated by Heather Wokusch. – The Editor

VIENNA (IDN) – A comfort often overlooked, the water served at the Vienna UN headquarters is locally sourced from mountains outside of the city. In Austria, water is a point of pride. This developed nation's water sector is committed not only to quality water systems but also to sustainable practices regarding the water and waste industry. For Austrians, and those frequenting the UN's conference rooms in Vienna, exceptional drinking water is a given.