Universal Access to Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Draws Closer to Epic Goal Despite Global Pandemic

50 Years and Billions Spent: New Reporting Shows Universal Access to Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Draws Closer to Epic Goal Despite Global Pandemic

Join a special session with Ambassador Mark Green featuring groundbreaking reporting on one of the most stubborn challenges in human history—universal access to water, sanitation and hygiene.

Register here: https://engage.wilsoncenter.org/a/50-years-and-billions-spent?_ga=2.257362504.2142016265.1620277195-242578209.1620277195

Over the last half century a global galaxy of projects, programs, banks, philanthropies, government departments, idea centers, utilities, service companies, research groups, and consultancies devoted itself to one objective—providing every person on Earth clean water, sanitation, and hygiene. In 2020, many of the sector’s leaders worried that the COVID-19 pandemic would sidetrack investment and slow progress. But while the signs of a potential catastrophe were apparent, the actual effects of the pandemic in delivering water and sanitation to people who needed it were not nearly as dire as anticipated.

Decades of frontline experience provided the WASH sector keen understanding of the various components of their ecosystem—finance, governance, installation, management, operations, oversight—and how each influenced the other. In essence, the WASH community developed a set of approaches that simplified the complexity of what they were after. Achieving universal access to clean water and hygiene is reachable by 2030. Universal access to sanitation could come by mid-century.

Program

Opening Remarks:

Ambassador Mark Green – President, Director, & CEO, Wilson Center

Framing Remarks:

Maura Barry – Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Resilience and Food Security and interim Global Water Coordinator, U.S. Agency for International Development

Reporting Presentation:

Keith Schneider – Senior Editor and Chief Correspondent, Circle of Blue

Panelists:

Sheila Kibuthu – Communications Director, Sanergy
Joel Kolker – Program Manager, Global Water Security and Sanitation Partnership, World Bank
Duncan McNicholl – Director and Co-founder, Uptime
Tanvi Nagpal – Director, International Development Program, School for Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Keith Schneider – Senior Editor and Chief Correspondent, Circle of Blue

Closing Remarks:

Peter Laugharn – President and Chief Executive Officer, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on Financing for Development, please visit ngosonffd.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Human Rights, please email the co-chairs at bobbinassar@gmail.com or bknotts@uua.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-Vienna, please visit ngocsdvienna.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-NY, please visit

UNAIDS Zero Discrimination Day

On Zero Discrimination Day, 1 March, we celebrate the right of everyone to live a full and productive life—and live it with dignity. Zero Discrimination Day highlights how people can become informed about and promote inclusion, compassion, peace and, above all, a movement for change. Zero Discrimination Day is helping to create a global movement of solidarity to end all forms of discrimination.

On Zero Discrimination Day this year, UNAIDS is challenging the discrimination faced by women and girls in all their diversity in order to raise awareness and mobilize action to promote equality and empowerment for women and girls.

To learn more, visit unaids.org/en/zero-discrimination-day.

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on Spirituality, Values, and Global Concerns-NY, please visit csvgc-ny.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women-NY, please visit ngocsw.org. For more information on the NGO Committee for Rare Diseases, please visit ngocommitteerarediseases.org.

NGO Committee on Children’s Rights meeting “Your Choices, Your Planet”

The NGO Committee on Children’s Rights, committed to the well being of the World’s Children and the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), will hold its first meeting of the New Year!

January 21, 2021, 3:30-5:00pm on Zoom

We will focus on a short committee agenda followed by our guest speaker in commemoration of the UN International Education Day on Jan. 25. We invite school children and youth to attend this very educational presentation to learn some practical things each one of us can do to halt the destruction of our planet.

Guest speaker: Ms. Dale Walkonen

We have been hypnotized into thinking of ourselves as consumers in a limitless system of goods. If we realize that each thing, we buy is a vote for or against sustainability we can make better choices. From fashion to food, from travel to technology, what do we really need to have a good life? We will look at some practical answers to the question – What each of us can do to halt the destruction of our planet?

Speaker biography: Dale Walkonen is an Associate Producer at FacingFuture. TV, a Youtube channel dedicated to Climate Change. She was formerly a Professor of Communications at Concordia College, as well as a Legislative Consultant for the American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

www.childrightsny.org

Register here!

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on Children’s Rights, please visit childrightsny.org. For more information on the Intergenerational Solidarity, please email the vice chair at susanneseperson@gmail.com. For more information on the NGO Committee on Social Development, please visit ngosocdev.org.

Fifth Session of the United Nations Environment Assembly

2021 Theme: Strengthening Actions for Nature to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals

The fifth session of the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-5) provides leadership, catalyzes, intergovernmental actions on the environment, and contributes to the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and based broad consultations with Member States and Stakeholders, the UNEA Bureau decided on 8 October 2020 that UNEA-5 should take place in a two-step approach. The first session of UNEA-5 will be conducted virtually on 22-23 February 2021 with a revised and streamlined agenda that will focus on urgent and procedural decisions. Substantive matters that require in-depth negotiations will be deferred to a resumed in-person session of UNEA-5 in February 2022 in a format to be defined and agreed on at a later stage.

The theme calls for strengthened action to protect and restore nature and the nature-based solutions to achieve the SDGs in its three complementary dimensions (social, economic and environmental). UNEA-5 provides Member States and stakeholders with a platform for sharing and implementing successful approaches that contribute to the achievement of the environmental dimension of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs, including the goals relation to the eradication of poverty and sustainable patterns of consumption and production. UNEA-5 will also provide an opportunity for Member States and Stakeholders to take ambitious steps towards building back better and greener by ensuring that investments in economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic contribute to sustainable development.

The President of the UN Environment Assembly, in close cooperation with UNEA Bureau and the Committee of Permanent Representatives and its Bureau will continue to work in an open and participatory manner to ensure a successful and impactful two-step UNEA-5.

For further information, contact the UNEP Secretariat at unep-sgb@un.org.

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee for Rare Diseases, please visit ngocommitteerarediseases.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Financing for Development, please visit ngosonffd.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-Vienna, please visit ngocsdvienna.org.

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