Title: Water Dialogues for Results – Accelerating cross-sectoral SDG 6 implementation
Commissioned by: German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV)
Country: Global
Overall term: 2020 to 2023
Sustainable Development Goal 6 of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDG 6) aims to ensure the availability of clean drinking water and sanitation for everyone. It is also intended to ensure that water is used in an environmentally friendly manner. To achieve this goal and bring the issue to the fore, the United Nations (UN) have established the International Decade for Action, ‘Water for Sustainable Development’, from 2018 to 2028. This is intended to motivate UN member states to tackle global water-related challenges more effectively with ambitious initiatives.
However, it is becoming increasingly difficult for many countries of the Global South to achieve SDG 6 by 2030. The slow progress is alarming since many fields are connected and affected: global health in the COVID-19 pandemic, the fight against climate change, functioning agriculture, energy production and intact ecosystems all depend on water. At the same time, the cross-sectoral ambitions represent an opportunity to tap resulting synergy effects.
With this project, Germany is making an extensive contribution to the UN 2023 Water Conference, which will take stock of the first half of the International Decade for Action. In addition, the project is involved in the corresponding preparation.
States from all regions of the world and other actors have been mobilised to identify and implement cross-sectoral measures in the water sector.
In various dialogue formats, UN member states, international organisations and representatives of various societal groups discuss priority areas of action and requirements with regard to implementing SDG 6. A steering committee uses this as a basis to develop policy recommendations, which were presented at a high-level virtual ministerial conference in July 2021. The recommendations for action are being incorporated into the preparation for the UN 2023 Water Conference, for instance in the context of preparatory conferences and an EU position on water.
Last updated: May 2022
