MAY IN FOCUS
 22 MAY: INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
The United Nations has proclaimed 22 May the International Day for Biological Diversity, in order to increase understanding and awareness of biodiversity issues. This year's theme for the Day is: 'Biodiversity: Life Insurance for our Changing World'.
In the last 50 years, human actions have changed the diversity of life on the planet more than at any other time in history. The current pace and rhythm of human activities are harming ecosystems, consuming biological resources and putting the well-being of future generations at risk.
This year's theme reminds us that, in addition to providing the physical conditions for all life, biodiversity also plays an important role in protecting life and making it resilient to the pressures brought about by change. The theme is also especially relevant for this year the biodiversity synthesis report of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment will be launched on the same day.
Water and biodiversity are closely intertwined issues. The Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity participated actively in the first World Water Development Report, 'Water for People, Water for life', and is contributing to the second Report, due for released on 22 March 2006.
WHAT'S HAPPENING AT WWAP?
THE EUROPEAN UNION RECOMMENDED STRENGTHENING AND SUPPORTING WWAP DURING THE CDS 13 SESSION ON MONITORING
The thirteenth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-13), which concluded on April 22 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, was a very important meeting for the freshwater community as it was the second of two consecutive sessions focussing on freshwater issues. Government Ministers, policy-makers, UN representatives - WWAP coordinator Gordon Young among them - and NGOs participated in policy sessions and side events aiming to mobilize the international community to achieving the water, sanitation, and habitat-related international targets.
In a statement made during the session on monitoring, the European Union recommended strengthening and supporting WWAP in monitoring and reporting on Integrated Water Resources Management, stating that 'a strengthened UN-WATER, including the Joint Monitoring Program and the World Water Assessment Program, should facilitate monitoring and follow-up of water and sanitation commitments.' Several other countries supported this suggestion.
Participants produced an outcome document to CSD-13 that highlights the need for better financing if developing countries are to achieve internationally agreed targets, and calls for the use of policy instruments such as regulation, cost recovery, and targeted subsidies for the poor, among others. It also emphasizes capacity building as integral to effective water management, as well as cooperation among riparian states, especially in the case of transboundary basins in Africa. The outcome document calls on governments to provide sanitation services, and explicitly links improved sanitation and poverty reduction.
:: Statements and the advance, unedited outcome document [PDF format - 41.8 KB] are available on the official CDS 13 website.
23 MAY: REGIONAL WORKSHOP: 'MANAGEMENT WATER FOR LIFE AND DEVELOPMENT: PREPARING FOR THE 4TH WORLD WATER FORUM', ANTIGUA, GUATEMALA
In the framework of the 10th Network Meeting of the Consulting Partners of the Global Water Partnership (GWP), the GWP and the Secretariat of the 4th World Water Forum (4th WWF) organized a regional workshop, 'Water for Life and Development: Preparing for the 4th World Water Forum', which took place in Antigua, Guatemala on 23 May. The aim of the workshop was to analyse the level of water management in Central and South America, in relation with the rest of the world, as well as the status of the preparatory process for the 4th WWF.
WWAP coordinator, Gordon Young, who is the beacon for the 4th WWF crosscutting theme 'Targeting, Monitoring and Implementation Assessment' was one of the speakers for the session dedicated to the implementation of Integrated Water Resources Management.
WWAP Case Studies represent a substantial input to the upcoming Forum. Of the 23 case studies currently under development for the second World Water Development Report (WWDR II), 3 deal with major Central end South American basins.
WWDR II will be launched during the 4th WWF in Mexico City (Mexico) on 22 March 2006.
WWAP AND METROPOLIS SIGN A COLLABORATION AGREEMENT
Arturo Montiel Rojas, President of Metropolis Commission 6 on Water Management, and WWAP deputy coordinator Carlos Fernández-Jáuregui signed a collaboration agreement on 11 May during the 8th Metropolis World Congress. By this agreement Metropolis has formalized its intention to contribute to the next World Water Development Reports (WWDR), starting with WWDR II, and both organizations have agreed to reinforce their bilateral collaboration.
The congress was organized in 6 commissions, each encouraging an exchange of experiences around a specific theme. WWAP deputy coordinator, Carlos Fernández-Jáuregui, is moderator for commission 6, 'Water management in large metropolises'. Experts discussed such issues as new sanitarian concepts and solutions for sewage management, sustainable and environmentally friendly approaches to water supply and wastewater management or public/private partnerships.
Engin Koncagül, WWAP programme officer, gave a lecture on water in settled regions for the commission on 13 May.
:: Access the official website for the congress
:: Read more about Commission 6
:: Read the chapter on water and cities from the first World Water Development Report [PDF format - 801 KB]
WWAP CASE STUDIES UPDATE: 18 WWAP case studies for WWDR II
WWAP case studies provide a kind of laboratory for testing methodologies and for evaluating lessons learned from examples of real-world practices. They allow us to identify the areas of greatest stress and point out the gaps in our knowledge and understanding. The idea is to take a snapshot of global conditions by including a selection of on-the-ground studies representing different geographic regions, different conditions of water-related stress, different socio-economic circumstance and different human needs.
Case study partners report that the process has fostered a closer working relationship between the institutions and agencies involved on the basin level, and has also encouraged putting in place a comprehensive framework for monitoring, evaluating and reporting in the water sector and defining clear and specific monitoring indicators to be used by all stakeholders in the sector.
The first World Water Development Report (WWDR) included 7 WWAP case studies. Today, 18 ongoing case studies have provided more than 120 concrete examples with which to illustrate the 11 challenge areas that form the basis of WWDR II.
From today on, Currents will introduce you to an aspect of a WWAP case study in each issue.
Each case study will also be published as a whole on the WWAP website when WWDR II is released, on 22 March 2006.
WWAP PARTICIPATES
THE WATER MONITORING ALLIANCE
The Water Monitoring Alliance is made up of organizations involved in the collection, analysis, reporting and dissemination of information on water in all its uses.
Its objectives are to enhance a greater exchange and sharing of information amongst the organizations and programmes involved in this collection and dissemination of water data and to provide better access to the information for decision-makers, the media and the public at large. The Alliance is a cooperative partnership of organizations and programmes, including WWAP, working at the international, regional, national and local levels. The website was officially launched during a CSD 13 side event.
16-29 MAY : 'INFILTRATION 6': A MULTIDISCIPLINARY TRAVELLING FESTIVAL ON WATER IN AUVELAY, BELGIUM
Organized within the framework of the Belgian 'Rives d'art' festival, 'Infiltration 6' includes expositions, story-telling sessions, short animations and experimental videos about water. WWAP deputy coordinator Carlos Fernández-Jáuregui presented the WWAP programme on 21 May, during one of the festival's conferences on water issues. Water-related organizations and NGOs are participating in and organizing events throughout the festival.
For more information please contact Lucille Peget: conteners@hotmail.com
WATER-RELATED NEWS AT WWAP UN-PARTNERS
3 MAY: UNICEF AND WHO LAUNCH 'WORLD MALARIA REPORT 2005'
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) launched on 3 May the 'World Malaria Report 2005', at UNICEF headquarters in New York. The Report is a comprehensive study that documents the burden of malaria worldwide and describes progress in many countries in the effort to control the disease.
The Report finds that in 2003, some 350 to 500 million people worldwide became ill with malaria - a slight revision of the estimate of 300 to 500 million annual cases that WHO has used since 2000. The reasons for this difference are advances in data collection methods and increases in the world's population. Current methods do not allow for a more precise estimate, given that malaria is most often not diagnosed with certainty, as well as the scarcity of reliable data from the communities where it occurs.
Halting and reversing the incidence of malaria by 2015 is a target of the Millennium Development Goals. The more immediate goal of the Roll Back Malaria Initiative is to halve the burden of malaria worldwide by 2010. One of the main drawbacks is the necessary funding: the report estimates that US$ 3.2 billion per year is needed to effectively combat malaria in the 82 countries with the highest disease burden.
:: Access the World Malaria Report
FAO AND UNESCO LAUNCH A NEW ONLINE EDUCATION TOOL KIT ON AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY AND FISHERIES
For the first time, a tool kit including a wide range of teaching and learning tools for the education of rural people is available on the Internet. It will provide governments, NGOs, international organizations, rural schoolteachers, extension agents and the public at large with the latest knowledge on how to help rural communities ameliorate their livelihoods.
The Education for Rural People Tool Kit Web page is a valuable resource for all those whose daily work involves training the rural poor in the fields of food and nutrition, local knowledge systems, agrobiodiversity, food quality and safety, rural finance, marketing, forestry, fisheries, communication and other related issues.
'The tool kit will help policy-makers to implement education programmes and improve the quality level of education in rural areas', said Lavinia Gasperini, an FAO expert who works in close collaboration with UNESCO and several other organizations involved in Education for Rural People initiative, launched at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. 'The first Millennium Development Goal-reducing hunger and poverty-will not be achieved unless we give a higher priority to improving education in rural areas, where the majority of the people live.'
The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) are both participating in drafting the second United Nations World Water Development Report (WWDR II) to be released on 22 March 2006.
:: Read the first WWDR, 'Water for People, Water for Life'
:: Read the full press release
:: Access the tool kit
FACTS AND FIGURES ON WATER AND BIODIVERSITY
- What is Biodiversity? Biological diversity - or biodiversity - is the term given to the variety of life on Earth and the natural patterns it forms. The biodiversity we see today is the fruit of billions of years of evolution, shaped by natural processes and, increasingly, by human influence. It forms the web of life of which we are an integral part and upon which we so fully depend.
This diversity is often understood in terms of the wide variety of plants, animals and micro-organisms. So far, about 1.75 million species have been identified, mostly small animals such as insects. Scientists reckon that there are actually about 13 million species, though estimates range from 3 to 100 million. Biodiversity also includes genetic differences within each species.
Yet another aspect of biodiversity is the variety of ecosystems such as those that occur in deserts, forests, wetlands, mountains, lakes, rivers and agricultural landscapes. In each ecosystem, living creatures, including humans, form a community, interacting with one another and with the air, water, and soil around them.
- Changes in biodiversity may occur in response to an enormous range of environmental factors, including water quality, quantity and periodicity, the individual significance of which may be unclear. While not substituting for water quality information, which is essential for health-related management goals, biodiversity measures do have the potential to provide an integrated measure of overall ecosystem condition.
- The four groups with the highest proportion of extinct or at risk species-freshwater mussels, crayfish, amphibians and freshwater fish-are all inhabitants of, or dependent on, inland water habitats.
- Only about 10% of the world's fish have been assessed, the great majority of these being from inland waters, but 30% of those are listed as threatened. While 34% of the 64 freshwater fish species found in Croatia are threatened species, in Madagascar and Portugal the proportion is 32%. The highest number of threatened freshwater fish species is found in the United States, with 120 species out of 822 (15%).
- For example, Lake Malawi (southern Africa) is an aquatic system that was originally endowed with a great deal of fish and also freshwater snail biodiversity. However, loss in fish biodiversity has resulted in the favouring of certain snail species that play a role in the transmission of schistosomiasis. The increased health risk has greatly affected Malawi's tourist industry, and as a result, the whole economy has declined.
:: Facts and figures taken from the first World Water Development Report (WWDR), 'Water for People, Water for Life'
:: Read more facts and figures from the WWDR. Updated facts and figures will appear in WWDR II, to be launched on World Water Day 2006 at the 4th World Water Forum in Mexico City, Mexico.
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Don't forget to keep visiting WWAP website.
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