UN 2023 Water: Research, science and justice central for water progress
Delegates at the UN 2023 Water Conference next week must take research, science and justice seriously, speakers at a recent Nature Water Talks seminar said, noting that researchers’ insights and evidence is often not part of the key discussions at such international fora.
For this conference, the first UN conference on water since 1977, Rachael McDonnell, Deputy Director General – Research for Development at the International Water Management Institute, said she hoped for a different approach: one that signals that “research and innovation, you have a really important part to play because the world is changing, and we need your evidence to help us manage that change and have solutions for that change,” she said at the seminar, held 15 March.
Joyeeta Gupta, IHE Delft Professor of Law and Policy in Water Resources and Environment and Professor of Environment and Development in the Global South at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research of the University of Amsterdam, said she hoped Conference delegates would take the concept of water justice seriously.
“For me, it would be a success if people don’t just bandy the word justice in New York, but they actually mean something by it. And they actually understand what it means for those of us who live with taps with 24-hour water: that we may have to sacrifice something in order that others have a little bit more water,” she said.
The seminar discusses a new Nature Water article titled Goals, progress and priorities from Mar del Plata in 1977 to New York in 2023, written by authors including Gupta and several other seminar speakers. Lead author is R. Quentin Grafton of the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University.
IHE Delft is a supporting organizer of more than a dozen side events at the Conference, and it is involved in several New York Water Week events. Learn more about IHE Delft at the Conference here.