Transcript WATER AND HUMAN SETTLEMENTS OF THE FUTURE

UNESCO International Hydrological Program
UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Scientific Cooperative
Program in Hydrology and Water Resources
IHP-VIII is focusing on 6 thematic areas to optimize water management and security
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Water-
related
disasters
-water
extremes
 Improve scientific basis to develop adaptation strategies and risk
management tools to cope with water related disasters in a changing
environment.
 Strengthening capacity for droughts and floods monitoring and forecasting
 Mainstreaming Gender and Climate Change in the Water Resources
Management
 Addressing Water Security: Climate Impacts and Adaptation
 Strategic Strengthening of Flood Warning and Management Capacity
IFI
- Launched in 2005 by IHP, WMO, UN/ISDR, UNU
and IAHR;
- Based at the International Centre for Water Hazard
and Risk Management (ICHARM) hosted by the
Public Works Research Institute in Tsukuba, Japan;
- Aims at building capacity in countries to better
understand and respond to floods, minimizing their
social, economic and environmental risks while
taking advantage of their benefits;
- Focus on research, information networking,
education and training to empower communities
and provide technical assistance.
IDI
- Launched in 2010 at the 19th Session of the
Intergovernmental Council (Iran proposal);
- Hosted at the Regional Centre on Urban Water
Management (RCUWM) in Teheran;
- Provides a platform of global networking and
knowledge sharing between international entities
actively working on droughts (as UNESCO Category
II centers and water chairs, WMO, WWC, FAO,
UNDP, ISDR and GWP);
- Surveys drought management, collects
information, helps affected countries, develops
capacity building, strengthens public participation
and promotes regional and international
cooperation on drought issues.
Exhibition Mountains: Early Warning Systems for Climate
Change
• Among the raising awerness activities a new exhibition showcasing satelite
images aerial and ground pictures was presented during COP21 in Paris last
November.
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 Provide a scientific platform and tools to enhance Member States'
capacity to meet the challenges of sustainable groundwater
resources management in a changing environment.
 Enhancing groundwater water governance in a context of climate
change
 Assessement of Transboundary Aquifers ,
 Transboundary waters cooperation and Hydrodiplomacy
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Water
scarcity
&
quality
 Strengthen capacity to address water quality and scarcity
 Emerging Pollutants in Wastewater Reuse in Developing
Countries.
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 Promoting Sustainable Water Management in Human Settlements
of the Future
 Securing Sustainable Urban Water Management Pathways
Water for
human
settlements
 Water, Climate and Megacities
 Participation in COPs
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 Enhance capacity to improve ecohydrology techniques for
sustainable water management
 Ecological and Eco-hydrological Solutions for Sustainable
Management
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 Enhancing water education, the key for water security.
 Enhanced capacity building and governance for the sustainable
management of Water resurces
 AFRICA -NEPAD Centres of Excellence Capacity building .
UNESCO-IHP / through it UNESCO's Water Family has conducted a wide
range of courses and workshops at all levels for water experts,
technicians and teachers but also young civil servants in several regions.
Overall, efforts should continue to be made to improve and update
water education at all levels.
During 2014-2016, UNESCO-IHP and it water family, was able to train
through this theme 3509 individuals (50% males and 50% females).
THE 2030 AGENDA
FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
IHP contribution
to
SDGs Goal6
Monitoring and
Implementation
 The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
includes a dedicated goal on water and sanitation
(SDG 6) and several other goals that are water
related.
 The UN-Water established in 2014 an Inter-Agency
Initiative ‘Integrated Monitoring of Water and
Sanitation Related SDG Targets (GEMI)’ to respond
to
the
monitoring
needs
of
SDG
6.
 IIHP is playing an active role in the development of
methodologies for the implementation and
monitoring of SDG 6 under the umbrella of UNWater
SDG N.6 AND THE 2030 AGENDA FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Methodologies that have been developed should be tested before to be used
by all countries and then consider the establishment of a global baseline.
Six countries have already offered to act as pilots to test the POC: Bangladesh,
Jordan, Netherlands, Peru, Senegal, and Uganda. UNESCO has been charged
to organize the workshops of the test of the SDG 6 targets and indicators
methodologies in Jordan in May 2016 (together with UN-Habitat) and in the
Netherlands 7-9 September 2016.
The EU presidency of Slovakia coincide with the SDG N6 test period.
Therefore, during its EU presidency Slovakia institutions could play a crucial
role in testing this methodology for the monitoring of the SDG.N.6 and serves
as example for the other EU countries. UNESCO IHP is ready to provide
technical and financial support. The first workshop could be organized in
Slovakia the second part of September 2016.
WATER AND HUMAN SETTLEMENTS OF THE FUTURE Background: The UNESCO IHP programme on Water and Cities aims at supporting cities and
rural settlements facing climate change, population growth, deterioration of urban infrastructure
systems and other global challenges in understanding the issues and in adopting an approach
based on the interdependence of the different water systems.
Action proposed:
-Setting up in Slovakia of a UNESCO chairs on Water and Cities devoted to a multidisciplinary
approach related to the citizen science concept, nevertheless based on sound scientific bases.
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Participation in the UNESCO IHP Water and Cities platform.
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Cooperation with Mass media and preparation of clips and video to disseminate via twitter
and YouTube. UNESCO has produced a short film 'Water in Cities', that aims to illustrate
present and future challenges in urban water management, highlighting water problems
facing cities around the world.
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UNESCO WWAP is currently working on the critical role of water in the circular economy –
very much in line with Europe’s ambition for the future. UNESCO and Slovakia could be
supporting the EU in moving this agenda forward, e.g., info session, policy advice etc.
WATER AND GENDER.
Background: To address the considerable data gap on gender and water issues
at the global level, in 2014 WWAP launched a ground-breaking project to develop
and test sex-disaggregated indicators for the collection of global water data. The
project has developed a methodology for sex-disaggregated data collection using
multi-sectoral gender-sensitive water indicators, with the aim of advocating for the
implementation of gender-sensitive water monitoring in the post-2015 agenda and,
in particular, in the monitoring framework of the SDGs.
Action proposed: The role of Slovakia to develop awareness in the EU countries
would be crucial. The Toolkit is currently ready for pilot testing in the field. The
collection of sex-disaggregated data in selected pilot areas can be implemented in
different world regions in cooperation with national authorities, research institutes,
and international organizations. Specific methodologies for collecting and
assessing such data, a guideline manual for ‘in the field’ data gathering with
specific insights for different world regions and a questionnaire for practitioners on
sex-disaggregated data collection are available. Technical staff of national
institutions, local practitioners and researchers will collect sex-disaggregated data
by use of the questionnaire.
BUILDING WATER COOPERATION IN AFRICA
Background: Transboundary water cooperation is a crucial issue in the African continent where several
international rivers and 42 transboundary aquifers containing precious groundwater resources are shared by many
African countries. The role of NGOs in supporting the establishment of local capacity on good practices on Water
Cooperation is crucial. UNESCO IHP is supporting the launch of the Water resources eastern Africa regional
category two UNESCO centre established in Nairobi.
Moreover a water cooperation and peace programme supported by the UNESCO IHE is developed through a
multidisciplinary approach, and provides participants with a theoretical and historical understanding of conflict and
peace dynamics and frame issues of water security and cooperation in the broader context of environmental
issues, in depth knowledge of and skills in critical analysis of water conflicts, an understanding of sociohydrological dynamics, decision making processes on water resources and services management, water
diplomacy, water dispute prevention, management and resolution skills and tools to promote/achieve water security
and to ensure dialogue and cooperation between different and competing users at different scales.
Action proposed: Slovakia institutions and NGOS could support the activities of the UNESCO centre in Nairobi.
Activities related to training on conflicts prevention, water cooperation, floods and drought management could be
jointly organized by UNESCO IHP with Slovakian public and private institutions and NGOs in coordination with the
government of Kenya. UNESCO is preparing a project on the Kilimanjaro aquifer shared by Kenya and Tanzania
and involvement of the Slovak cooperation could be really useful.
WATER EDUCATION
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FREEWAT (FREE and open source tools for WATer resource management)
is an HORIZON 2020 project financed by the EU Commission.
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FREEWAT aims at promoting water resource management by simplifying
the application of the Water Framework Directive and other EU water
related Directives.
Specific objectives of the FREEWAT project are:
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to coordinate previous EU and national funded research to integrate existing
software modules for water management in a single environment into the GIS
based FREEWAT;
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to support the FREEWAT application in an innovative participatory approach
gathering technical staff and relevant stakeholders (primarily policy and decision
makers) in designing scenarios for the proper application of water policies.
UNESCO IHP is a part of a consortium of 18 other partners implementing
the FREEWAT project.