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Your Excellency Mr. Pascal Canfin, Minister for Development, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, France; Your Excellency Mr. Hamrokhon Zarifi, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Tajikistan; Ms. Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO; Mr. Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General, World Meteorological Organization, and Chairperson, UN-Water; Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen,
I am pleased to greet all participants at the inaugural event of the International Year of Water Cooperation.
Water is central to the well-being of people and the planet.
We need it for health, food security and economic progress.
Water holds the key to sustainable development.
We must work together to protect and carefully manage this fragile, finite resource.
Each year brings new pressures on water.
Growing populations. Climate change.
One-third of the world’s people already live in countries with moderate to high water stress.
Competition is growing between farmers and herders; industry and agriculture; town and country.
Upstream and downstream, and across borders, we need to cooperate for the benefit of all – now and in the future.
The United Nations General Assembly has designated 2013 the International Year of Water Cooperation.
Let us harness the best technologies and share the best practices to get more crop per drop.
Let us promote water rights, waste less and design intelligent policies so all users get a fair share.
Let us invest in water.
Water is life.
BACKGROUND INFO
INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF WATER COOPERATION (A/RES/65/154)
The objective of the UN International Year of Water Cooperation, declared by the UN General Assembly in December 2010, is to raise awareness, both on the potential for increased cooperation and on the challenges facing water management in light of the increase in demand for water access, allocation and services. World Water Day 2013, observed on 22 March, also will be dedicated to the theme of water cooperation, and it is expected that the General Assembly will hold a high-level interactive dialogue on that day. The Government of Tajikistan has offered to host, in August 2013, a high-level international conference on water cooperation. UN-Water has called upon UNESCO to lead the preparations for the International Year.
The Year will highlight the history of successful water cooperation initiatives, as well as identify significant issues on water education, water diplomacy, transboundary water management, financing cooperation, national/international legal frameworks, and the linkages with the Millennium Development Goals. It also will provide an opportunity to capitalize on the momentum created at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), and to support the formulation of new objectives that will contribute towards developing water resources that are truly sustainable. The International Year of Water Cooperation will also be celebrated in the context of the International Decade for Action “Water for Life” 2005-2015.
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