10th Meeting of Parties to the Water Convention in Slovenia

In Ljubljana, Slovenia, more than 100 countries and 30 ministers attended the 10th session of Meeting of the Parties (MOP) to the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (Water Convention) from 23 - 25 October.

Prior to the MOP, on the 16th of October, a call to action was issued by Ms Sonja Koeppel, Secretary of the Convention to build momentum to demonstrate how transboundary cooperation accelerates climate action and helps reduce disaster risks, among other benefits. Pointing to recent floods in Central and Eastern Europe as well as drought emergencies in Southern Africa, she noted that these extreme weather events serve as reminders of the vulnerability of our water systems.

These challenges, she noted, can only be addressed together given that more than 60% of all freshwater resources worldwide are shared between two or more countries. However, currently, only 26 countries have operational and effective arrangements in place for all their shared waters – to prevent conflicts, adapt jointly to climate change, and reap the full benefits of transboundary cooperation can bring. In addition, only 15% of shared basins have joint climate change adaptation strategies.

The MOP was opened by H.E. Robert Golob, the Prime Minister of Slovenia explained that the proactive diplomatic role played by Slovenia was rooted in the country’s own experiences with transboundary cooperation on shared waters in the region. In addition, he stated, it was a role that was born out of a sense of responsibility to future generations. He underlined the key role of technologies such as satellites and supercomputers in providing accurate information on water resources, enabling coherent planning of water resources as well as offering the means for the better protection for lives and livelihoods. He noted the historically high level of participation of the MOP, with more than 600 participants, which serve to underline the increased global attention for cooperation in the context of the convention as well as the connections between water and peace.   

The next statement was by Ms Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and Chair of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group. She noted that with 55 parties to the convention, of which 15 have acceded since, 2016, here is growing global recognition of the importance of this work. She encouraged all member states to join the UN Water Conventions as critical tools to achieve the SDGs and achieve peace, prosperity and resilience for all.

Next, Ms Tatiana Molcean, Executive Secretary of the UNECE pointed out that although in recent years, it has been difficult to make water more visible on the global stage, at the present moment we are being overwhelmed by water emergencies, climate change is disrupting water systems at the global scale, and we are not prepared. Therefore, we urgently need to improve water governance at all scales, deploying the best available technologies and to improve the ways in which we use water in our economies and in our daily life. This needs to be done together and not in an isolated fashion. Therefore, in a setting in which transboundary water resources represent 60% of water resources worldwide, transboundary cooperation should be used to elevate our ambitions towards the achievement of the SDGs.

SDG 6 indicator 6.5.2 measures transboundary cooperation through existing operational arrangements or agreements on shared lakes, rivers and aquifers. However, today we only have 43 member states which have such an agreement covering 90% of shared water resources. There is, therefore, a lot of work to be done.

The Water Convention has increased and spurred progress over the past thirty years and its intergovernmental platform has continued to grow, now counting 55 countries with 20 countries in the process of acceding. More importantly, 130 countries take part in the activities and discussions on transboundary waters in the context of the Convention.

Ms Molcean called on all countries to accede to the Convention, underlining that the Convention together with the Transboundary Water Cooperation Coalition has helped to position transboundary water cooperation higher at the global level at the UN 2023 Water Conference and within the first UN system wide strategy on water and sanitation launched in July this year.

On climate change, we have contributed to a political breakthrough for the first time, the context of transboundary water cooperation is recognised in the decisions in the global stocktake and the global goal on adaptation from COP 28 in Dubai.

The theme of climate change in the context of transboundary cooperation was prominent during the 10th MOP, with amongst others a special session being devoted to transboundary water cooperation to power climate resilience.  This session prompted interventions from Algeria, Armenia, Poland, Ukraine, Slovakia and Sierra Leone as well as from the OSCE, the Union for the Mediterranean, and the Food and Agriculture Organisation.