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UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme’s contribution to the United Nations 2023 Water Conference
The United Nations World Water Development Report (UN WWDR) 2023 was launched at the UN 2023 Water Conference, in a side event co-organized by Italy and UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP) with the participation of the Italian Minister for Environment and Energy Security, the Deputy Director-General of UNESCO, the UN-Water Vice Chair, the Director-General of the Ministry of Agriculture of Tunisia and the Director of the Division of Water Resources of UNESCO.
The Report was also presented to the journalists in a briefing at UNESCO and the UN Headquarters. Overall, UN WWDR2023 created over 1,400 articles and as much as 20,000 online news items.
The event “Supporting gender equality in the Water Action Agenda with Global Multi-stakeholder effort”, brought together the voices of the Global Multi-stakeholder Coalition of the WWAP-led “Call for Action to accelerate gender equality in the water domain”.
Co-hosted by the Republic of Guatemala, it was opened by the Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Public Health and Social Assistance of Guatemala and by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia, and closed by the Ambassador-at-Large for Water Diplomacy at the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of Slovenia.
The event revolved around concrete action commitments stated by several Members of the Coalition (consisting of 21 Member States, and more than 150 individual members from international and regional organizations, funding agencies and ODAs, international and local NGOs, private sector, civil society, foundations and academia). The session included a set of institutional and foundational commitments provided by several Coalition members, among others, the financial support of Slovenia to WWAP for leading the process, and the agreement on a roadmap and timeline of the implementation plan.
WWAP, in collaboration with the brand-new Arts Coalition for Water (comprising Member States, the European Commission Joint Research Center, youth organizations, and several UNESCO Category II centers, Chairs, and IHP’s initiative such the Water Museums Network) organized the Art Exhibit ‘WoW - Walk of Water: An Intergenerational Journey’ throughout the Conference. The Walk of Water received great attention and was visited by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Rep. of Slovenia, the Director General of the Environment at the EU Commission, and by the Deputy Director-General of UNESCO. The Art Exhibit will travel through major cities in 2023 and is also planned to be displayed at UNESCO HQ in June.
