8 March 2023 - Ahead of the UN 2023 Water Conference, UN DESA is bringing together youth and indigenous peoples for a dialogue on 9 March highlighting solutions for achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6 for clean water and sanitation and ways to ensure better outcomes for the world’s 2.2 billion people who lack safely managed drinking water.
This latest installment of the Department’s Global Policy Dialogue Series, “Indigenous and Youth Solutions for Clean Water” will highlight the intersectionality of the issues these vulnerable groups face.
Two panel discussions in the event align with two of the Interactive Dialogues of the Water Conference. The first conversation considers how to improve access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), which the COVID-19 pandemic showed is vital to human health. Representatives from the World Youth Parliament for Water, Oxfam and Human Right 2 Water, and from the Mohawk people of Canada will share new ways to improve this access, particularly for women and girls.
The second panel will focus on the connection between water and climate change, resilience and the environment. Experts from the Métis Nation of Canada, Diné people of the US, and others representing Indigenous Arctic groups of Finland, Botswana and the UN system will share ideas for better management of freshwater ecosystems. As it stands, the mismanagement of water sources, combined with accelerating climate change impacts, is undermining the key services that water provides to support life on earth.
Throughout the dynamic sessions, audience members will be encouraged to use the interactive Slido platform to ask their questions, vote up others’ questions and participate in polls. The dialogue is made possible by the UN Peace and Development Trust Fund.
Watch the UN DESA Global Policy Dialogue, “Indigenous and Youth Solutions for Clean Water” on UN DESA’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/joinundesa, or on UN WebTV. It will be live on Thursday, 9 March, from 9:00-10:30 a.m. EST, and the video archived on those sites afterward. More information is available on the Global Policy Dialogues website.