The UN Water Conference in New York was a tremendous success, with 708 commitments registered for the Water Action Agenda. These commitments aimed at driving transformation from a global water crisis to a water-secure world.
One of the main outcomes of the Conference is the Water Action Agenda. The Water Action Agenda collects all water-related voluntary commitments to accelerate progress in the second half of the Water Action Decade 2018-2028 and the second half of the 2030 Agenda.
The key building blocks of the Water Action Agenda are:
1. Commit to action
2. Sustain and scale up implementation
3. Follow-up and review processes
The priorities for the Netherlands as a co-host of the UN Water Conference is to make everyone understand, value and manage water better. Accurate and objective data across countries and basins are crucial for informed decision-making and planning at scale. The conference highlighted significant take-home messages, including the importance of big earth data, the higher green water use than blue water use in agriculture, and the availability of FAO’s statistical and remote sensing data for monitoring SDG target 6.4.
