Botswana: President Masisi is scheduled to attend the UN 2023 Water Conference, formally known as the Midterm Comprehensive Review of the Implementation of the UN Decade for Action on Water and Sanitation (2018-2028).
The conference will take place at the UN Headquarters in New York from the 22nd – the 24th of March 2023. The first United Nations Conference on Water was held in 1977, and the top on its agenda was to address the Water security issues faced by nations at that time. Close to fifty years later, global world leaders are gathered to address water challenges facing humanity today.
The UN Water Summit is co-hosted by Tajikistan and Netherlands. The meeting will start off with the official opening ceremony, followed by six plenary sessions, five interactive dialogues and side events that participants have organised.
It is expected that this summit will go beyond political will and adopt the Water Action Agenda as its main outcome. It is hoped that the commitments made will be the game-changer in ensuring an adequate supply of water to humanity.
According to a new report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO), some 2.2 billion people around the world do not have safely managed drinking water, while 4.2 billion go without safe sanitation services, and 3 billion lack basic handwashing facilities.
The UN Water Conference is expected to speak to progress made in achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with particular emphasis on accelerating implementation towards achieving SDG 6, which is about clean water and sanitation for all.