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25 May 2023
AfDB and UK sign U.S. 2 billion agreement for climate projects in Africa
On the 25th of May the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the United Kingdom (U.K.) signed an agreement to fund up to U.S. $ 2 billion in climate projects in Africa. The agreement was signed in the context of the AfDB annual meeting that took place in Accra, Ghana. At COP 26 in Glasgow, the U.K. had already announced its intention to support the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Programme endorsed by the African Union in order to upscale African plans to increase climate resilience...
25 May 2023
Ecuador completes world’s largest debt for nature swap.
The government of Ecuador has completed the world’s largest debt for nature swap with the support of the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) and the U.S. Development Finance Corporation (DFC). The IDB provided a $ 85 million guarantee, while the DFC provided a $ 656 million political risk insurance to purchase the country’s existing debt at better financial terms...
24 May 2023
Women in Water Diplomacy Network Reports on Progress
In April, the Women in Water Diplomacy Network (WWDN) published its 2023 After Action Report which reviews the activities of both its Water Diplomacy Symposium as well as the network’s engagement in the UN 2023 Water Conference. Following the expression in 2022 of its strategic objectives for the period 2022-2017, the WWDN embarked on the implementation of its five point strategy to improve gender equality in high-level decision making in transboundary basins...
22 May 2023
IADB publishes cybersecurity study on water infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean
Source of Innovation, a partnership promoted and co-financed by the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB), has carried out a study on cybersecurity trends in the water and sanitation sector of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The study involved an assessment of LAC’s water and wastewater infrastructure ‘cybersecurity readiness’ and presents key recommendations for public and private sector actors to increase their organization’s overall cyber resilience...
22 May 2023
Majority of world’s lakes experiencing decline in storage volumes
A research article on global hydrology published in Science on the 18th of May shows that more than half of the large freshwater lakes across the world experienced a decline in storage between 1992 and 2020. The natural volume of the world’s lakes has declined by some 26 Gigatonnes per year (equivalent to the volume of some 10 million Olympic sized swimming pools) over these three decades...
19 May 2023
UN Water’s 2023 Data Drive:
On the 2nd of May, UN Water launched the third round of global data compilation for sustainable development goal 6 (SDG 6) on water to integrate and mainstream the evidence base for global decision making on water and sanitation, the 2023 Data Drive. This third data drive is taking place against the background of a marked improvement over time in the breadth and depth of national reporting on SDG6 since the first data drive in 2016/2017 and the second in 2019/2020: the size and quality of the global data set guiding national and international decision making on water has improved steadily since the launch of the 2030 Agenda in 2015...
18 May 2023
66% likelihood of temperatures reaching 1.5⁰C above normal in the next five years
On the 16th of May, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) announced that there is a 66% likelihood that the average global temperature between 2023 and 2027 will be more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for at least one year. There is also a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period as a whole, will be the warmest on record...
18 May 2023
Interview: Federico Properzi, UN Water
Tobias Schmitz: At the last UN Water Conference in Mar del Plata in 1977, member states prepared national plans in advance and ultimately met for a period of two weeks. In the 2023 UN Water Conference, the agenda was fairly open and the meeting lasted three days. This puts quite a lot of pressure on achieving the outcomes in a short space of time...
9 May 2023
Death toll from floods in DRC and Rwanda mounts
Floods in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo have killed at least 400 people according to the governor of the South Kivu region where the floods occurred. Heavy rain commenced in the areas on the 4th of May and continued on the 5th of May, swelling the Cibira/Cabondo and Nyamakubi rivers and triggering landslides which swept through the villages of villages of Bushushu and Nyamukubi...
8 May 2023
WFP and UNEP sign agreement to boost food and water security
On the 5th of May, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) signed an agreement designed to strengthen cooperation on water and food security. The agreement was signed by Cindy McCain, the Executive Director of WFP, and Inger Andersen, the Executive Director of UNEP...
8 May 2023
Interview: Lesha Witmer
Tobias Schmitz: Looking back at the UN 2023 Water Conference, we had a 3-day window to catch up on the last 46 years since the last official UN water conference in Mar del Plata. So, it was a huge opportunity but also a big challenge to get the most out of it. From your perspective, how did you feel it was organised? Did we squeeze out of it what we could have? Lesha Witmer: Actually, it is quite intriguing...
3 May 2023
Lake Kenyatta: Lamu County and a Water Users Association work to protect a vital resource.
For 40 years, David Muiga, aged 72, has lived in Mpeketoni, Lamu County, Kenya, having moved there from the Rift Valley decades ago and joining thousands of immigrants. Mpeketoni started as a government settlement scheme in the 1970s for landless people drawn from other parts of Kenya. With water readily available from Lake Kenyatta, the area grew rapidly as agricultural production increased to supply local towns such as Lamu, but also to Malindi, Mombasa and even Nairobi...