World Water Day celebrated

March 23, 2013: Greater cooperation is urgently needed for more equitable use and division of water, senior United Nations officials stressed on Friday marking the 20^th anniversary of World Water Day.

“Water is a common resource. Let us use it more intelligently and waste less so all get a fair share,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his message for the Day.

In separate remarks at the high-level dialogue on water cooperation in New York, Ban reiterated that “competition is growing among farmers and herders, industry and agriculture, town and country, upstream and downstream, and across borders.”

One out of every three people lives in a country with moderate to high water stress, he said, and by 2030 nearly half the global population could be facing water scarcity, with demand outstripping supply by 40 per cent due in part to climate change and the needs of populations that are growing in size and prosperity.

He noted that agriculture is the largest user of freshwater, and there is a growing urgency to reconcile demands from farming with those of domestic and industrial uses, especially energy production.

Discussions at today’s meeting, he said, will help deliberations on the post-2015 development agenda, as world leaders, experts and civil society representatives seek to set sustainable development goals for after the deadline set to reach the anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Mr. Ban noted that the goal related to halving the number of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water has been reached, but that the goal related to sanitation falls “woefully short.”

Source: un.org