The intergovernmental Open Working Group on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) called for in the Rio+20 Outcome Document is convening its third meeting on 22-24 May 2013.
The session is expected to discuss issues of food security and nutrition, sustainable agriculture, drought, desertification, and land degradation for 1.5 days, and water and sanitation for the other 1.5 days. Proceedings will be available in real time via UN Webcast.

See the Issue Brief on Water prepared by the UN System Technical Support Team (TST)
More information on the 3rd session

The theme Water and Biodiversity was chosen to coincide with the 2013 International Year of Water Cooperation.
A special event in New York on 22 May will bring attention to the importance of biodiversity to water and its contribution to the SDGs process, to the achievement of the UN development objectives and to the post-2015 development agenda.

More information

The final draft of the Post-2015 Water Thematic Consultation report has been released for a final round of comments until 5 May 2013. The report attempts to synthesize the various components of the consultation including the preparations for the online discussions, the web-based dialogue, face to face meetings as well as a High-Level Forum which endorsed the Thematic Consultation's main messages.

Download the report and contribute to the online discussion

Despite considerable progress made since 1990, 15% of the world's population still practice open defecation, one of the clearest manifestations of extreme poverty. Recognizing that greater progress on sanitation is essential for fighting poverty and for achieving all the MDGs, the UN Deputy SG Jan Eliasson has initiated a renewed effort to drive progress on sanitation and water goals as we head towards 2015. He is calling on all actors to do their part. With a thousand days for action before the 2015 MDG deadline, we have a unique window of opportunity to deliver a generational change.

UN News Center
Invitation: "A Matter of Life: Investing in Sanitation" - 19 Apr Washington DC

A series of 22 country consultations took place from February to May 2013 to address the importance of water to national development. These national stakeholder consultations were part of the process taking place to listen to country needs and priorities regarding the post-2015 agenda for water and sustainable development. The consultations were carried out by local Global Water Partnership (GWP) partners in collaboration with government. The findings have been published in a report, National Stakeholder Consultations on Water: Supporting the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

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The latest newsletter focuses on water security and looks at the recently released working definition proposed by UN-Water in its Analytical Brief "Water Security and the Global Water Agenda". The review includes quick facts, a new infographic showing the key elements of water security as well as a 4-pages summary of the Brief for decision makers.

UN-Water Analytical Brief on "Water Security and the Global Water Agenda" is now also available as an online flipbook.

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The new publication proposes a working definition of water security developed from contributions made by the broad range of organizations, agencies, programmes and institutions that form UN-Water. It is intended to serve as a starting point for dialogue on water security in the UN system. The Brief, produced by UN-Water Task Force on Water Security, aims to capture the dynamic and constantly evolving dimensions of water and water-related issues, and offers a holistic outlook for addressing water challenges through the umbrella of water security.

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Download Analytical Brief (2.2 Mb PDF)

Produced by the UN-Water Decade Programme on Advocacy and Communication (UNW-DPAC), this review brings you every two months the latest publications produced by United Nations agencies and programmes on issues related to water and sanitation.

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