22-24 March 2023 | New York

Co-hosted by the Government of Tajikistan and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and convened by the UN General Assembly, the UN 2023 Water Conference will take place from 22-24 March 2023 to coincide with World Water Day, and will focus on the objectives of the International Decade for Action as laid out in the Secretary-General’s Plan: Water Action Decade 2018-2028.

View the Water Action Agenda on the UN Water website.

AWP and our Partners at the UN Water Conference

The Role of Indigenous People in Governing Shared Waters

22 March 2023 | 2:00pm – 3:15pm (EST) | UNHQ, Conference Room A 

Organised by the Water & Tribes Initiative, Colorado River Basin, and Water Resources Research Center, University of Arizona, this session will provide a platform for Indigenous people to share their experiences in governing shared waters, highlight lessons learned, and develop recommendations for future action.

Dr. Leslie (Phil) Duncan, Murray-Darling River Basin, Australia (with AWP Partner Alluvium) will offer perspective, lessons, and recommendations as part of this session 

Visit the Water & Tribe site for more details.

Accelerating Women’s Inclusion in Water

22 March 2023 | 2:00pm – 3:15 pm (EST) | UNHQ Side Event Room B

Water insecurity has a disproportionate effect on women and girls, in terms of the likelihood of food insecurity, personal safety concerns, vulnerability to disasters, and water-borne disease risks. Similarly, women are significantly under represented in water leadership roles, where critical decisions on water investments and allocation of water resources are made. Addressing these inequalities, including access to safely managed water supply, sanitation, and water resources, and ensuring that women are well-represented as water leaders, policymakers, and professionals is essential to accelerate progress on SDGs, particularly SDG 6.

The session will focus on:

• how to better measure and track gendered dimensions of women’s water insecurity, and women’s representation in water leadership and policymaking roles, including the need for enhanced data collection efforts and establishing baselines
• sharing case studies on transformative practices, which have good potential for scale-up and replication, to enhance women’s leadership and water resilience and security, including countries’ experiences in implementing efforts to promote gender equality in the water sector and foster women’s participation in policy making.

AWP is an organising partner for this event. Visit the ADB Knowledge Events site for more details.

Indigenous Peoples and Water: Joint Commitments to transforming water governance, climate adaptation and biodiversity – Indigenous Peoples, Member States and the UN system

23 March 2023 | 1:30pm – 2:50pm (EST) | Doha Conference Room

Indigenous Peoples have been managing and governing water resources since time immemorial, from places with abundant water to semi and arid environments, in all global regions. Though there has been some research on indigenous knowledge of water, overall, most of the traditional and contemporary efforts, values, capacity and commitments remain undocumented or little known to decision-makers and scientists.

Through a series of diverse regional case studies, the side event aims to outline current practices and a road map for new approaches and new commitments to an inclusive, rights based and multiple evidence approach to water management and governance, with special attention to sustaining biodiversity, food systems and addressing climate changes.

Associate Professor Bradley Moggridge from the University of Canberra will present an Australian case study in this session.

For more details visit the International Capacity Development Network for Sustainable Water Management (Cap-Net) website.

Supporting gender equality in the Water Action Agenda with Global Multi-stakeholder effort

23 March 2023 | 5:00 pm – 6:15 pm (EST) | Conference Room VI, UNHQ

The event led by the World Water Assessment Program will bring the voices of the Global Multi-stakeholder Coalition for gender equality in water to discuss concrete actions linked to the Water Action Decade, and agree upon a joint roadmap.

AWP sister fund Water for Women is an organising partner.  

For more details visit the UNESCO website.

Roundtable: Empowering Women, Youth and Indigenous Persons to Accelerate Global Water Security in the Water Action Decade

24 March 2023 | 8:30am – 10:00 AM (EST) | Millennium Hilton and online

This interactive world café format will bring together member nation representatives, networks, young water professionals, indigenous leaders, civil society, and development partner organisations to develop a consensus around key strategic actions and practical steps to address slow progress, including, among others, accelerating benchmarking of diversity in water institutions.

Alison Baker and Jose Mott from Water for Women are leading the table discussion on Enhancing effective voice and influence of indigenous persons in decision-making processes and leadership spaces in water. Dr Leslie (Phil) Duncan, Senior First Nations Water Leader with AWP Partner Alluvium, will be a panellist at the table

Navara Kiene (WaterAid) will join the table for Enhancing effective voice and influence of women in community level water user’s associations, community level disaster risk management committees, flood emergency/early warning committees.

Register on Zoom to join the event online.

Informal Special Event | Water Leadership: Uniting for a Sustainable World

24 Mar 2023 | 10:30am – 11:20am (EST) | Conference Room 2, UNHQ 

This Special Event is designed to determine actionable commitments that each participant can implement to support critical engagement with underrepresented groups. It will co-create inclusive leadership mechanisms for the follow-up and monitoring of the Water Action Agenda that will put at the forefront the voices of marginalized communities. It will identify priority intergenerational, intersectoral, gender and geographically inclusive partnerships and commitments to scale up engagement. In doing so, the event shall recognise the need to expand financing mechanisms with strong accountability, especially federal and state funding to invest in youth education and innovation.

Dr. Leslie (Phil) Duncan, Alluvium will be part of a 15-minute debate session during this event with the theme focused on ‘Indigenous Water Leadership’.

AWP Partner Aither is a coordinating organiser of this event.

For more details visit the UN Sustainable Development Goals website.