Briefing Insight: A UN gathering over troubled water

🌐 Is it worth the 46-year wait?

🌐 WorldWise Briefing | insight through the media narrative.

It’s everywhere and nowhere.

That can be said of water itself, and of how it’s been treated in the world of international protection.

Many of us take for granted that clean water will flow at the turn of a tap. But from scarcity to flooding, pollution or cross-border disputes, water troubles feature in most discussions over pressing global issues including climate change and health or peace and security. 

A pervasive nature doesn’t guarantee visibility. On the contrary: water has fallen between the cracks of big-ticket global discussions for the best part of 50 years.

That changed a couple of weeks ago, when the first UN Water Conference since 1977 convened in New York, kicking off on March 22nd: World Water Day.

The allocated space at UNHQ overflowed with delegates across the three days of proceedings. At times the meeting rooms were too packed to accommodate anyone who failed to arrive way in advance. If you did manage to sneak in, it was a case of standing room only, or the occasional squatting beneath presentation monitors.

But alongside a sense of occasion, you could also catch murmurs of concern that this energy would fizzle out without an outcome concrete enough to be meaningful. 

This Briefing Insight brings you the bottom line and key details from the rare event—we sift through the media narrative, filtering it through a first-hand understanding of the proceedings; touch on why a focus on water matters; and conclude with a WorldWise take on whether the UN’s conference could prove a pivotal moment for the neglected resource. 

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