33rd webinar of the series in the Hebd'Eau series titled «New and great ambitions for water thanks to the Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)», in collaboration with the Institut Hydro-Québec en environnement, développement et société (EDS).
Speaker: Gérard Payen, Former Water Advisor to the UN Secretary General, Vice President of the French Water Partnership
Language: French, with slides in French
Summary:
The adoption of the Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has changed the political vision for water in the international community. Whereas previously there were only two limited and partial global goals for water, in 2015 the United Nations adopted a coherent vision of all water-related challenges, unanimously adopted some 20 very ambitious common goals and gave them high visibility by making them one of the 17 priorities of humanity. This is a real action program with a timetable, monitoring indicators and regular progress points. It has also been progressively recognized that achieving the new global water goals is a necessary condition for the success of many other global ambitions. Water has thus moved from a minor to a major status.
These new goals have brought great hope to those who need water or drinking water and to those who are concerned about water pollution or overexploitation of groundwater. The existence of these objectives is not, however, in itself a guarantee that national policies will be accelerated. However, new statistical indicators have been developed and their transparent monitoring by the UN is beginning to have an impact on governments, which will not be able to avoid taking into consideration the progress or delays known to their public opinion.
Unfortunately, actions on the ground do not yet correspond to these new ambitions. The monitoring mechanism shows that progress is very insufficient and does not indicate any acceleration of public policies and actions on the ground. For access to drinking water, we would have to wait until the 23rd century to hope to achieve the universal access planned for 2030! A political awakening is necessary both in the countries and at the collective UN level.
New series of weekly CentrEau webinars "all about water management". These short 20-minute presentations will be offered live every Thursday at 1 p.m. followed by a short discussion period. CentrEau professors and researchers, as well as guest speakers, will present their research work and its importance in a semi-popularized manner. Watch the previous webinars on our YouTube Channel.
