Water is ‘catalyst’ for cooperation, not conflict, UN chief tells Security Council.
6 June 2017 – Stressing the importance of diplomacy to prevent and resolve trans-boundary disputes over water resources, Secretary-General António Guterres today told the United Nations Security Council that water serves as “a catalyst” for cooperation among nations, even those that are not on good terms.
“I commend this Security Council meeting for highlighting how water is and should remain a reason for cooperation not conflict,” Mr. Guterres added.
With climate change having a growing impact, water scarcity is a growing concern, he pointed out, noting that by 2050 at least one in four people will live in a country where the lack of fresh water is chronic or recurrent.
Three-quarters of UN Member States share rivers or lake basins with their neighbours.
“That is why it is essential that nations cooperate to ensure water is shared equitably and used sustainably,” he said.
In the second half of the 20th century alone, some 287 international water agreements were signed.
The 1960 Indus Water Treaty between India and Pakistan has survived three wars between the two countries.
The Albufeira Convention, agreed when Mr. Guterres was Prime Minister of Portugal, continues to promote good relations on water management between his country and Spain.
“Let us commit to investing in water security to ensure durable peace and security for all communities and nations,” he concluded.

UN chief warns of serious clean water shortages by 2050.
He told the Security Council that "strains on water access are already rising in all regions," noting that three-quarters of the 193 U.N. member states share rivers or lake basins with their neighbors.
"Water, peace and security are inextricably linked," Guterres said.
The secretary-general said the United Nations is ready to engage in preventive diplomacy to keep the competition for water from sparking conflicts.
"Our planet, the human family and life in all its myriad forms on Earth are in the throes of a water crisis that will only get worse over the coming decades," he said.
"If current patterns of consumption continue unabated, two-thirds of the world’s population will be facing water shortages as a daily reality by 2025," Morales added.
Right now, he said, more than 800 million people lack access to safe drinking water and more than 2.5 billion don’t have basic sanitation.
He said the world currently is not on track to meet U.N. goals for 2030 calling for improved water security, access to drinking water and sanitation, as well as stronger management of water resources shared by countries.
Rycroft said Britain has provided $30 million over the past five years to support a regional approach to "identify and resolve challenges affecting these transboundary waters."
"The cooperation between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan and the signing of the Declaration of Principles by the leaders of the three countries is also another manifestation of regional cooperation that needs to be enhanced further," he said.

Uganda: 1 Million Residents in Wakiso Use Unsafe Water, Says Cao.
However, in many rural and peri-urban areas in Uganda, access to clean water is still a distant dream.
Latest figures indicate that safe water coverage currently stands at 43 per cent, which translates to only 860,000 residents with access to safe and clean water compared to the estimated population of two million people residing in the district.
This means that about 1.14m residents draw water from unprotected sources.
"In fact, we need to guarantee provision of certain basic needs for our people and clean water is among them," he said in an interview on Wednesday.
Wakiso is currently pushing for a city status, but the district is still faced with myriad challenges, ranging from poor road network, poor urban planning, especially in Nansana Municipality, poor health services and dilapidated public schools.
"While we think about developing the country, Wakiso District should be the priority district.
Its development will ease the pressure on Kampala city," Mr Lokuda said.
Wakiso District director of water services, Eng Isaac Galabuzi is optimistic that provision of water will improve with time.
As the Financial Year comes to close, the district has so far drilled 20 boreholes, two motorised wells, 30 hand dug wells, rehabilitated 16 boreholes, designed two rural growth centres piped water supply systems and 269 water sources tested.

Climate change to worsen in cities, Sainsbury’s launches own Fairly Traded label, The Body Shop asks UN to end animal testing, and Tesco slashes carbon footprint with new refrigerant The Body Shop launches ‘ambitious’ campaign to end animal testing The Body Shop has launched a new campaign for a global ban on animal testing on cosmetic products and ingredients by 2020 in a new partnership with non-profit organisation Cruelty Free International.
The Body Shop plans to take the campaign to the United Nations and request an international convention banning cosmetics testing on animals.
The new research estimated that changing a fifth of a city’s roofs and half the pavements to cooler versions would reduce city air temperatures by 0.8°C (1.4F).
As part of its new sustainability standards, the retailer is piloting a sustainability sourcing approach for its tea range, which Sainsbury’s says will provide more direct support to its farmers.
Under the Fairly Traded pilot, tea farmers supplying Sainsbury’s Red Label and Gold Label ranges will continue to receive a guaranteed minimum price for their crop along with a social premium, as they did under the Fairtrade agreement.
Fairtrade’s chief executive Michael Gidney has said that the Fairly Traded approach falls below the core principles offered by Fairtrade, and will take control away from producers.
We see the proposed approach as an attempt to replace the autonomous role which Fairtrade brings and replace it with a model which no longer balances the power between producers and buyers.” Sainsbury’s has insisted the group’s farmers have been fully supportive of the new approach and Fairtrade are the only people who will lose out through the move.
The new range of Fairly Traded teas will be in Sainsbury’s stores this month.
The retailer has maintained its Fairtrade commitments to its premium ranges of own-brand teas, Fairtrade bananas, coffee, chocolate, and flowers.
tesco refrigerant carbon footprint tea Sainsbury’s Fairtrade climate change pollution cities urban heat island comments powered by Disqus

How to Produce More Food with Less Damage to Soil, Water, Forests.
To achieve sustainable development we must transform current agriculture and food systems, including by supporting smallholders and family farmers, reducing pesticide and chemical use, and improving land conservation practices, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) director-general on May 30 said in Brussels addressing European lawmakers.
José Graziano da Silva stressed that while high-input and resource intensive farming systems have substantially increased food production, this has come at a high cost to the environment.
“Today, it is fundamental not only to increase production, but to do it in a way that does not damage the environment.
Among the 15 trends described in the report, are the impacts of climate change, conflicts and migration.
The report also foresees 10 challenges for achieving food security, improving nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture worldwide.
Climate Change He underscored that no sector is more sensitive to climate change than agriculture – especially for smallholders and family farmers from developing countries – while at the same time, agriculture and food systems account for around 30 per cent of total greenhouse emissions.
There is no trade-off between the two,” the FAO chief said, while pointing to the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while at the same time building the resilience and to promote the adaptation of farmers to the impacts of climate change.
To this end, FAO supports countries through different initiatives and approaches, including climate-smart agriculture, agro-ecology and agro-forestry.
“Today the world produces enough to feed the global population, but about one third of this food is either lost or wasted, while at the same time there is also a waste of natural resources such as land and water.” The UN agency currently supports about 50 countries in the area of food losses and waste, including through the SAVE FOOD initiative, a unique partnership –with more than 850 members from industry, associations, research institutes and non-governmental organizations– that addresses these issues “across the entire value chain from field to fork,” Graziano da Silva told the European parliamentarians.

Agencies Consolidate Partnerships for SDG Implementation.
10 May 2017: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and the World Bank have signed a framework agreement to strengthen the fight against hunger and poverty, especially in situations of protracted crises and fragility.
The Near East and North Africa regional programmes of FAO and the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) have agreed to extend their current partnership until 2020, further aligning their respective strategic programmes and priorities with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Zero hunger is the focus of SDG 2, while SDG 6 addresses clean water and sanitation and SDG 15 covers life on land.
The last Goal, SDG 17, addresses partnerships for achievement of the Goals.
The framework agreement between the World Bank and the FAO, which was signed on 10 May 2017 in Rome, Italy, aims to consolidate the agencies’ longstanding partnership in the agriculture and rural development sector.
FAO’s support will include providing technical expertise to improve rural livelihoods, efficient food production and distribution, and the sustainable management of natural resources.
The FAO-ICARDA partnership, which focuses on the agencies’ programmes in the Near East and North Africa region, was announced during a joint technical meeting in Cairo, Egypt, in April 2017.
Over the past three years the partnership has promoted sustainable agricultural development and management of water and land resources to enhance food security and improve livelihoods in the region.
Joint activities have focused, inter alia, on: scaling up improved water management technologies and practices; strengthening implementation capacity; and addressing rural gender inequalities and accelerating women’s empowerment in rural communities in the region.

UN chief calls for international support to alleviate drought crisis in Somalia.
“Somalia now hangs in the balance between peril and potential,” Mr. Guterres said.
“Here in London we can tip the scales from danger to safety.” He said political stability has improved but the gains are fragile in part because “growing food insecurity” is affecting millions of Somalis.
Guterres said some 439,000 people are at risk of famine and more than 6 million are “severely food insecure.” Somalia is also facing new military interest from the United States, as President Trump has approved expanded operations, including airstrikes, against the extremist group al-Shabab.
Aid agencies have expressed concern that the military moves could endanger the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the drought.
Pressure is growing on Somalia’s military to assume full responsibility for the country’s security as the 22,000-strong African Union multinational force, AMISOM, that has been supporting the fragile central government plans to leave by the end of 2020.
The US military has acknowledged the problem.
The AU force will begin withdrawing in 2018, and the head of the US Africa Command, Commander General Thomas Waldhauser, has said that if it leaves before Somalia’s security forces are capable, “large portions of Somalia are at risk of returning to al-Shabab control or potentially allowing ISIS to gain a stronger foothold.” Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, who was elected in February and also holds US citizenship, has repeatedly vowed to defeat al-Shabab within two years.
Somalia also confronts the worst outbreak of cholera in five years, with almost 690 deaths so far this year and cases expected to reach 50,000 by the end of June, the World Health Organization said in a statement Thursday.
WHO added that if the current drought situation continues, “famine could soon be a reality.” Charities working to stave off famine in Somalia are urging that the African country’s debts be cancelled.

UN chief: drought-stricken Somalia ‘hangs in the balance’.
LONDON — British Prime Minster Theresa May and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called Thursday for more support for drought-stricken Somalia, with the U.N. chief requesting another $900 million in aid this year.
They spoke at a high-level conference to address the Horn of Africa nation’s deepening humanitarian and security crisis.
"Here in London we can tip the scales from danger to safety."
Guterres said some 439,000 people are at risk of famine and more than 6 million are "severely food insecure."
Somalia is also facing new military interest from the United States, as President Donald Trump has approved expanded operations, including airstrikes, against the extremist group al-Shabab.
Aid agencies have expressed concern that the military moves could endanger the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the drought.
Pressure is growing on Somalia’s military to assume full responsibility for the country’s security as the 22,000-strong African Union multinational force, AMISOM, that has been supporting the fragile central government plans to leave by the end of 2020.
The U.S. military has acknowledged the problem.
Save the Children chief Keven Watkins said the African country "continues to drift toward an avoidable famine."

Ethiopia is facing a killer drought.
But it’s going almost unnoticed.. ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The announcement by the United Nations in March that 20 million people in four countries were teetering on the edge of famine stunned the world and rammed home the breadth of the humanitarian crisis faced by so many in 2017.
On Thursday, the Ethiopian government increased its count of the number of people requiring emergency food aid from 5.6 million to 7.7 million, a move that aid agencies say was long overdue.
The figure is expected to rise further as southeast Ethiopia confronts another fierce drought.
Ethiopia, long associated with a devastating famine in the 1980s, returned to the headlines last year when it was hit by severe drought in the highland region, affecting 10.2 million people.
Food aid poured in, the government spent hundreds of millions of its own money, and famine was averted.
“We’ve spent all the money we’ve got, basically.” With donors focused on Somalia across the border, little international aid has found its way to the Ethiopian areas hit by that drought.
The contrast is clear in the bustling capital, Addis Ababa, where rainy skies and a hive of construction projects make it feel thousands of miles away from any drought.
The United Nations World Food Program (WFP), which is working in Ethiopia’s drought-hit Somali region, has started cutting its food rations to 80 percent.
“It’s stretching the humanitarian community,” WFP regional spokeswoman Challiss McDonough said, referring to the string of crises in the Horn of Africa and elsewhere on the continent.

Six months into battle for Mosul, water and trauma care are key UN and partner priorities.
26 April 2017 – Safe drinking water is a major concern in Mosul, where a battle has been underway for the past six months to retake the city from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the United Nations humanitarian arm has said.
Some 450,000 people are currently displaced and the number continues “to increase rapidly,” the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Iraq said.
Humanitarian partners are trucking water to eastern Mosul at a rate of 2.3 million litres every day.
Nearly 28 neighbourhoods now have access to clean drinking water in the east.
However, “in newly retaken areas of western Mosul city, water trucking has already begun on a small scale, but significant increase in scale is required,” OCHA said.
The UN is also working with partners to re-establish a functioning city-wide water network.
Since mid-October, more than 8,100 people have been referred to hospitals in Mosul and surrounding areas.
In addition, the UN and its partners are working to house families and provide protection, particularly to women and children.
The 2017 Humanitarian Response Plan for Iraq requesting $985 million is currently 17 per cent funded, according to OCHA.