UN 2023 Water Conference – turning pledges into action through the second half of the Water Action Decade

/ Global, Region-Global
As a leading authority on water governance, GWP continued to put water at the centre of development at the UN 2023 Water Conference by participating in and leading over 30 events, committing pledges to the Water Action Agenda, and launching a sourcebook on managing multistakeholder partnerships to improve the global management of water resources. But, despite the best efforts of the delegates, was this conference the watershed moment promised?

Over 6,500 people gathered in New York last week for the first global water conference since 1977, which promised to be a watershed moment for the sustainable development community as the world united for “Water Action”. António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, said last week: “Without water, there can be no sustainable development.” But 46 years after the Mar del Plata conference, progress on water-related goals and targets remains alarmingly off-track. This is jeopardising the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and means that the outcomes of this conference needed to be historically significant. Dutch special envoy to the United Nations Henk Ovink said: “This conference is the beginning of a rippling effect across the world.”

A conference generating hundreds of pledges with no accountability

A major result of the conference was that UN Member States and stakeholders made more than 700 pledges to the Water Action Agenda. As a leading authority on water governance, GWP is committed to actively advancing the global water agenda. Along with its network, GWP submitted or partnered with other organisations to submit over 35 commitments, including the IWRM HelpDesk pledge to provide 150 institutions with policy and technical advice on integrated water resources management (IWRM).

But are pledges enough? Many participants agreed that more was needed from this conference beyond voluntary commitments, such as a formal global agreement on the level of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. This sentiment was felt by many across the sector, and more than 100 water experts sent an open letter to the UN Secretary-General on the last day of the conference highlighting the lack of “accountability, rigour and ambition”. Many questions are unanswered, including: how can we ensure pledges are turned into action?

Discover all of GWP’s commitments to the Water Action Agenda here, or find out each region’s favourite commitment by following this link and clicking on the right-hand menu.

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