Event details:
In-Person: CR-F, UNHQ, New York (Open to registered participants with UN Ground Pass)
Online: via Teams
Registration Form - HLPF Side event
Water and sanitation sit at the core of sustainable development, shaping outcomes across food systems, energy security, public health, urban resilience, and ecosystem integrity. Yet progress on SDG 6 remains off track, constrained by systemic challenges that undermine broader efforts to advance inclusive and resilient development across the 2030 Agenda. The United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) flagship report, Global Water Bankruptcy: Living Beyond Our Hydrological Means in the Post-Crisis Era, highlights a critical turning point: the world has entered an era of “water bankruptcy,” where long-term water use exceeds renewable limits. Decades of groundwater depletion, declining water quality, reduced environmental flows, and loss of natural storage have pushed many systems beyond recoverable thresholds, with significant social, economic, and environmental consequences.
While water bankruptcy is a global phenomenon, its manifestations and implications are highly context specific. Demographic trends, governance capacities, economic structures, climatic conditions, and levels of infrastructure development shape how water risks emerge and how societies respond to them. As a result, solutions cannot rely solely on global frameworks or universal prescriptions. Regional approaches are essential to translate global commitments into actionable priorities, address transboundary challenges, strengthen cooperation among neighboring countries, and align water management with broader social, economic, and environmental realities. Understanding these regional dimensions is therefore critical for identifying pathways that are both effective and politically feasible.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, the water challenge reflects a deep development paradox: the region is water-abundant, but water-insecure. Today, 2.5 out of 10 people lack safely managed drinking water, 5 out of 10 lack safely managed sanitation, only 46 per cent of wastewater is treated, and 43 per cent of water bodies are in poor environmental condition. These figures show that the region is not facing only a service gap, but a strategic development challenge that affects health, productivity, ecosystems, territorial resilience, and social cohesion.
At the same time, water presents a powerful opportunity to overcome the structural development traps. Strategic investment in water systems can catalyze progress across climate action, biodiversity, land use, food systems, energy security and health, while fostering cooperation in an increasingly fragmented global landscape. From this perspective, water is not merely a sectoral issue, but an enabling condition for productive development, territorial resilience, social inclusion, climate adaptation, and institutional capacity-building. In line with the momentum of the UN Water Conference, water must therefore be seen as a super-connector of sustainable development and as a practical entry point to link the 2030 Agenda with the Rio Conventions on climate change, biodiversity and desertification. To move from diagnosis to implementation, ECLAC emphasizes three mutually reinforcing priorities: democratic and effective governance to close the implementation gap; water valuation to improve decision-making, equity, efficiency and sustainability; and sustainable financing to shift from isolated projects toward bankable water security portfolios. Together, these priorities provide a practical pathway to translate regional commitments into measurable results for people, economies, and ecosystems.
Professor Kaveh Madani, Director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), will provide an overview of Global Water Bankruptcy and its implications, followed by Mr. José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), who will present a regional perspective on Latin America and the Caribbean. They will be joined by Member State representatives for a session on Voluntary National Reviews and the SDG 6 review, offering comparative insights on local action for global impact, followed by an interactive discussion featuring interventions from Member States and partners.
Please register for online or in-person participation:
