Slovenia Joins WASH Roadmap and signs the Call to Action

Under the banner “Bridging Borders: water for a peaceful and sustainable future”, the 2024 edition of the World Water Week (25 to 29 August) was centred on water cooperation and security in its broadest sense. The project of building a peaceful and sustainable future implies a spectrum of dedicated water diplomacy efforts, it requires international cooperation, and it rests on a recognition of the regional and global interconnectedness of communities and nations through water.

The aim of this yearly international event is first and foremost to be inclusive and to foster collaboration and innovation among attendants. The forum itself does not have any political role per se. However, the objective of accelerating water action, in a global context where the water sector is still strengthening its own governance – through the UN 2026 conference and the envisaged appointment of the Special Envoy on Water -and is more and more intricately interlinked with other sectors which are on top of the international agenda, such as climate, migration, food security and peace, makes it a place  for strategic reflection and a source of inspiration.

In a global context in which the number of forcibly displaced people has never been so high, with 347 water conflicts reported by the water conflict chronology  during 2023, and in which (according to UNOCHA 2023) 165 million people are in need of immediate assistance in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, the link between WASH and Peace remains as an absolute priority, especially when it comes to the impacts of armed conflict.

While forty-five sessions of the World Water Week 2024 referred to water and peace and sixteen on water and human rights, five sessions focused on water and armed conflict, considering the social and humanitarian impact, as well as other dimensions such as how monitoring and data can contribute to peace and security. Country representatives from hostpots such as Ukraine and Palestine alongside notable centres of water diplomacy such as Senegal and  Slovenia were invited alongside actors of the sector working in Fragile, Conflict and Violent contexts such as  UNICEF or Action Against Hunger, Mercy Corps, the European Commission, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Uppsala University the Geneva Water Hub and the Pacific Institute.

A dedicated SIWI seminar: Water and Armed Conflict - Social and Humanitarian impact -offered a concrete perspective on existing legal and technical tools to reduce the social and humanitarian impacts of armed conflicts on water in order to ensure the protection of life and human dignity of civilians.

While the seminar focused on the reduction and mitigation of civilian harm through the protection of water and water-related infrastructure from the consequences of armed conflicts, it also aimed at disseminating the legal knowledge on international humanitarian law and human rights law and the technical expertise on the reverberating impacts.

It was also an opportunity to reaffirm the importance for all humanitarian actors, cooperation agencies, donors and governments to endorse five major commitments summarized in the WASH Roadmap Call to Action  taken by the WASH community in November 2022. The WASH Roadmap to 2025 has become a reference platform for the entire humanitarian community working on water issues in humanitarian contexts.

What is the WASH Roadmap?

The drinking water and sanitation sector (also known as WASH) is one of the pillars of international humanitarian aid. In 2014, the international NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) published a report entitled “Where is Everyone?”, which left its mark on the humanitarian community. In this report, MSF highlighted critical shortcomings in humanitarian aid, pointing to shortcomings in technical capacity, prioritisation as well as internal processes. As a result, the sector launched a wide-ranging reflection on the practices and objectives of the humanitarian water sector.  This resulted in the identification of key priorities for joint work in the humanitarian WASH sector encapsulated in a WASH roadmap by the main players in the sector. Its aim is to ensure that the WASH humanitarian sector has the capacity and resources to provide qualitative responses on a large scale, anywhere, anytime.

Linked to this, alongside the UN 2023 Water Conference, a WASH Call to Action was launched. The WASH Call to Action is an appeal to governments to primarily focus their efforts on people living in Fragile Conflict and Violent (FCV) settings, increase support for humanitarian WASH responses and coordination, build sustainable and resilient WASH services that can withstand crises, actively promote the effective implementation of International Humanitarian Law obligations, and support the request to the UN Secretary-General to improve the WASH sector governance and swiftly nominate a UN Special Envoy for Water. This call has already been signed by 225 major actors of the WASH sector, including 4 Governments (France, Swiss, Slovenia and Chad). 

Slovenia recognized all the five elements of the Call as its own priorities within its water diplomacy agenda and for the protection of civilians agenda. Slovenia has supported WASH services in fragile and violent contexts through its humanitarian assistance and development cooperation. While water has been affected by armed conflicts since their existence, it was the increasing weaponization of water in Yemen, Ukraine, Sudan and Gaza that drove Slovenia to take action and establish a Global Alliance for Sparing Water in Armed Conflicts in partnership with Switzerland and Geneva Water Hub. The Alliance was launched in May, together with Senegal, Costa Rica, Panama, Indonesia, the Philippines, UNICEF, and Pax.

The Alliance aims to ensure greater compliance with International Law, better inform on the impacts of attacks on water, and increase pre-conflict preparedness and resilience of water infrastructure and essential services through strengthened collaboration among humanitarian, development and peace actors.

The synergies with the WASH Road Map initiative are obvious.  Awareness raising is essential for better protection but also for securing resources for the severely underfunded WASH in FVS. The Alliance can provide the needed political clout and visibility, while the WASH Road Map can empower the Alliance's efforts by sharing lessons learned from water protection practices in conflict zones, gathering data on environmental, social, and economic impacts, sharing case studies for training purposes, and exchanging ideas on incorporating resilience-building measures.

Joining the WASH Roadmap and signing the Call to Action was thus a natural step for Slovenia; failing to do so would risk missing out on crucial insights and partnerships.