How the national councils that grew out of the 1992 Earth Summit worked, why the global network faded, and where that work continues today.
National Councils for Sustainable Development
Agenda 21, Chapter 18: protecting freshwater resources
Regional sustainable development networks: Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Americas and Europe
Sustainable development work is organised by region as much as by country. An overview of the regional bodies and where their reports can be found today.
WSSD – World Summit for Sustainable Development
The World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) refers to a summit that occurred in Johannesburg in the last week of August and first week of September 2002. It
The Ramsar Convention
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Climate Change Convention
On November 28, 2011 the United Nation’s Climate Change Convention will take place in Durban, South Africa. This convention will bring together the very best minds in the
Recent applications of the Convention on Biodiversity
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How To Think About The Convention to Combat Desertification
On a global scale, there is deepening confirmation that the climate is changing, and that word-wide climate change is a factor that is contributing to an increase in
Integrating economic social and environmental action and perspectives
Every society is composed of a multi factorial system that contributes to the overall status of the society per se. Among the varied systems that make up the
Chapter 18 of Agenda 21, agreed at the 1992 Earth Summit, is the chapter on freshwater. Its full title is “Protection of the quality and supply of freshwater resources: application of integrated approaches to the development, management and use of water resources”. It is one of the longer chapters and it shaped water policy for two decades.
The seven programme areas
The chapter grouped its recommendations into seven areas: integrated water resources management, assessment of water resources, protection of water quality and aquatic ecosystems, drinking-water supply and sanitation, water for sustainable urban development, water for food production and rural development, and the impact of climate change on water. For each area governments were asked to name objectives, activities and the means of implementation.
Integrated water resources management
The most durable idea in Chapter 18 is integrated water resources management, usually shortened to IWRM. It treats a river basin as one system in which drinking water, irrigation, industry, hydropower and ecosystems compete for the same resource, and it asks that decisions be taken at the lowest appropriate level with all users involved. The 1998 session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-6) reviewed the chapter and produced the expert group reports that many national water strategies were built on.
What became of it
The freshwater agenda moved on from Agenda 21 in several steps. The Millennium Development Goals of 2000 set a target to halve the share of people without safe drinking water, which was met ahead of schedule in 2010. Since 2015, Sustainable Development Goal 6 covers water and sanitation for all, with IWRM written into target 6.5. The UN 2023 Water Conference in New York, the first of its kind since 1977, produced a Water Action Agenda with several hundred voluntary commitments. Progress remains uneven: according to the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme, roughly one in four people still lacked safely managed drinking water in the early 2020s.
This article is an independent summary. For the treaty text and the official documents, consult the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own.