3rd United Nations World Water Development Report: Water in a Changing World
'The third edition of the United Nations World Water Development Report, 'Water in a Changing World' was presented recently at the Fifth World Water Forum in Istanbul, Turkey on March 16, 2009. This report builds on the work of previous studies, including the two previous World Water Development Reports, and has a new, holistic format.
A major theme of this report is that important decisions affecting water management are made outside the water sector and are driven by external, largely unpredictable forces - forces of demography, climate change, the global economy, changing societal values and norms, technological innovation, laws and customs and financial markets. Many of these external drivers are dynamic, and changes are accelerating. The report emphasizes that decisions in other sectors and those related to development, growth and livelihoods should incorporate water as an integral component, including responses to climate change, food and energy challenges and disaster management. The report is available for download and can also be accessed online.'
'The limited availability of freshwater in the Arabian Gulf region has, for decades, presented a significant challenge to the people and the governments of the region. Scarce rainfall, together with a high rate of evaporation and consumption, leads to deficits in the water budgets of the countries of the Arabian Gulf region. This Policy Brief covers various issues related to water, such as current water status in the Arabian Gulf countries, water and agriculture, climate change and water, and water conflicts. Finally, water policy issues in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and recent initiatives are discussed.'
Water is essential to all life. And yet one in five Asians lacks access to safe drinking water and half the people living in the Asia Pacific do not have access to adequate sanitation. Conflicts over sharing of scarce water resources are increasing at an alarming rate.
The Water Voices is a seven part documentary series featuring stories about people tackling the Asia Pacific's water problems. It recognizes the power of good examples and lessons learned to inspire "homegrown" solutions to water problems.
Aquatic Habitats in Sustainable Urban Water Management
'Aquatic habitats supply a wide range of vital ecosystem benefits to cities and their inhabitants. The unsustainable use of aquatic habitats, including inadequate urban water management itself, however, tends to alter and reduce their biodiversity and therewith diminish their ability to provide clean water, protect us from waterborne diseases and pollutants, keep urban areas safe from flooding, and support recreational ecosystem services and even the aesthetic enjoyment of our world.
Aquatic Habitats in Sustainable Urban Water Management - the result of collaboration between UNESCO's International Hydrological Programme and its Man and the Biosphere Programme - aims at improving our understanding of aquatic habitats, related ecosystem goods and services, and conservation and sustainable use - with a special focus on their integration into urban water management.
Urban water supply services have traditionally been provided by state-owned, water utilities. In the past decades, many governments have tried to turn state-owned water utilities into effective and viable organizations with mixed success. Why have some public utilities become more efficient service providers, while others have not been able to break the vicious cycle of low performance and low cost recovery? The World Bank report 'key topics in public water utility reform' presents a framework of attributes of well functioning utilities and how they have introduced key institutional measures. It thus aims to help water and sanitation sector practitioners to choose and apply public utility reform approaches. Full paper in PDF format ( 384KB), Number of pages: 4p; Source: The World Bank
By 2025, three billion people will live in water-stressed countries. Management of the world's limited water resources, especially for food production, remains one of the most pressing issues in development. As part of its mandate for innovation in capacity development, the World Bank Institute (WBI) has been building and implementing several creative tools to foster more effective water management. The WBI Water Program is using role plays, games and hands-on simulations, as well as multimedia, to help organizations increase their capacity and skills so they can implement effective management solutions, improve their economic growth, and deliver better water services. These inventive techniques can be used in various settings and can easily be scaled up through local organizations.
'The second United Nations World Water Development Report entitled 'Water, a shared responsibility,' was launched on World Water Day, 22 March 2006, at the 4th World Water Forum in Mexico City, Mexico. Drawing on an extensive database, expert analysis, case studies, and hundreds of graphic elements, this report is the most comprehensive undertaking to date of freshwater assessment. The report is available for download and can also be accessed online.'
The purpose of this working paper, a think piece on governance in water services, is twofold. First, it aims to provide a basis for discussion and debate as to how the Department for International Development (DFID) should improve its approach to governance in water services.1 Second, it aims to develop a more comprehensive and structured approach to the analysis and the development of governance in water services by applying DFID's current governance thinking at the sector level. The paper therefore draws on internal DFID governance thinking, terminology and approaches and is, in this first version, targeted primarily at a DFID audience interested in governance, basic services and water.
'Water quality trading is gaining traction in a number of watersheds around the world. It is a market-based approach that works alongside water quality regulation to improve water quality, providing flexibility in how regulations are met and potentially lowering regulatory compliance and abatement costs. Our research identified 57 water quality trading programs worldwide. Of these, 26 are active, 21 are under consideration or development, and 10 are inactive or are completed pilots with no plans for future trades.'
'Secondary urban centres lack the scale of larger urban utilities, a feature which attracts both public and sometimes private investment (national and international); yet they are often too large to benefit from the community-based and micro-finance mechanisms that are often applied with success in rural areas. Given their scope, there are potentially significant economic development and poverty reduction impacts to be gained through sustainable access to safe water, sanitation programs, and effective drainage in these areas. Thus, financing water supply and sanitation services in Secondary urban centres demands creative thinking.
This paper reviews some of the creative ideas that have emerged to address the financial constraints to Secondary urban centres water and sanitation service delivery. The paper emphasizes domestic sources of finance for both hardware and software investments. These ideas involve a range of different
stakeholders, including users, informal providers, utilities, governments, NGOs, domestic banks, and donors.'
'Based on the collective inputs of UN agencies and convention Secretariats of UN-Water, this first Report offers a global overview of the state of the world's freshwater resources. It includes a large number of maps, figures, tables, and boxes illustrating the lessons learned all over the world. The report was officially released in English on World Water Day 2003, 22 March, during the 3rd World Water Forum in Japan. To know more about the report, users can access it online.'
'During every dry season from (March to June) Dhaka City dwellers suffer from an acute water crisis. In many parts of the city people get sticky and straw coloured water from the Wasa supply line. Such contaminated water, which causes many water-born diseases, is a public health disaster.'
Source: The Daily Star Magazine, 2009
Water is a limited natural resource and fundamental for life and health. In 2000, the World Health Organization estimate that of the world's 6 billion people, at least 1.1 billion lack access to safe drinking-water and 2.4 billion persons live without access to sanitation systems. An estimated 14 to 30 thousand people, mostly young and elderly, die everyday from avoidable water-related diseases (e.g. diarrhoeal diseases). The lives of these people who are among the poorest on our planet are often devastated by this deprivation, which impedes the enjoyment of health and other human rights.
The InnoWat team has created the kit InnoWat: Water, innovations, learning and rural livelihoods with the expectation that it will be useful to IFAD's country programme managers (CPMs) and will enhance IFAD's comparative advantage in rural poverty alleviation and water issues. The present text synthesizes two approach papers that together provide the rationale for a new, pro-poor approach to water issues. A series of topic, fact and tool sheets and case studies supports the papers.
For some people, the water crisis means having to walk long distances every day to fetch enough drinking water - clean or unclean - just to get by. For others, it means suffering from malnutrition or disease caused by droughts, floods or inadequate sanitation. Many people suffer these hardships due to lack of funds or inadequate knowledge of how to solve local water use and allocation problems. Full document in PDF format (280.31kb); Number of pages: 12p
This report is one of the primary outputs of the Vulnerability Assessment of Freshwater
Resources to Environmental Change project, and presents a situation analysis with regard to the vulnerability of water resources systems in South Asia. In addition to the more general issues addressed herein, this report considers three South Asian transboundary river basins as case studies: (i) Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM); (ii) Indus; and (iii) Helmand. Collectively, these basins provide South Asia with a variety of waterrelated challenges that encompass floods in the monsoon season; water shortages in the summer; sedimentation and erosion in the river and associated flood plains; drainage congestion in low-lying areas; and environmental and water quality problems.
Beyond training: Organizational and Institutional Capacity
'Capacity development' means different things to different people. However, it is generally considered essential to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) relating to water and sanitation. The slow spread of safe water and sanitation is commonly attributed to a shortage of skilled people. Hence capacity development is predominantly associated with training staff in constructing physical assets such as toilets and water systems, particularly but not only in rural areas.
A growing movement thinks so, saying it will guarantee that the poor have water. But at a water conference in Turkey, officials voice concern about implementing such a right.
This report presents-for the first time-country specific plans for achieving U.S. goals and objectives along with measurable indicators to track progress and report results. The report also highlights the work of U S agencies and departments to build partnerships, improve science and technology capacity, and increase political will among developing and donor countries to address water and sanitation challenges. Finally, this report builds on the USAID/DOS Joint Framework for Action by giving special consideration to three key emerging challenges: increasing access to safe drinking water and sanitation, and promoting hygiene for the poorest populations; responding to climate change; and increasing food productivity.
'This paper presents an analysis of Official Development Assistance (ODA) flows to the water and sanitation sector, based on data gathered from the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and Creditor Reporting Systems (CRS) databases, as well as current knowledge in the sector. As part
of this analysis, ODA flows to the health and education sectors, as well as to broader topics including governance and finance, are also considered. Where possible, policy implications and specific discussion about small towns is provided, however there is a general lack of information about financing flows to small towns, due to the nature of the accounting systems used by donors (and reported to the OECD).'
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