Weekly Wave: Reflections on World Water Day 2024

This Reflections essay is being published on March 22, which is World Water Day. UN-Water, which coordinates the United Nations’ work on water and sanitation issues, designates a World Water Day theme each year, and this year’s theme is Water for Peace. The UN-Water webpage features these points related to the Water for Peace theme, which I quote:

• Water can create peace or spark conflict.
• When water is scarce or polluted, or when people have unequal, or no access, tensions can rise between communities and countries.
• More than 3 billion people worldwide depend on water that crosses national borders. Yet, only 24 countries have cooperation agreements for all their shared water.
• As climate change impacts increase, and populations grow, there is an urgent need, within and between countries, to unite around protecting and conserving our most precious resource.
• Public health and prosperity, food and energy systems, economic productivity and environmental integrity all rely on a well-functioning and equitably managed water cycle.
• When we cooperate on water, we create a positive ripple effect – fostering harmony, generating prosperity and building resilience to shared challenges.
• We must act upon the realization that water is not only a resource to be used and competed over – it is a human right, intrinsic to every aspect of life.
  This World Water Day, we all need to unite around water and use water for peace, laying the foundations of a more stable and prosperous tomorrow.
  Taken together, these bullet points convey the significant global water challenges. At the same time, they focus on the importance of acting together to lay “the foundations of a more stable and prosperous tomorrow.”

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