Welcome to UN-Water

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Tim Kasten, Vice-Chair of UN-Water and UNEP's Deputy Director of the Division of Environmental Policy Implementation, reflects upon the achievements made to address water quality challenges over the past year and shares his thoughts on the emerging priorities for the near future.
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UN-Water has chosen climate change as a key area to address, and played a lead role in the recent Dialogs for Water and Climate Change at COP 16 held in Cancun, Mexico.
Click on the link below to read our views on Water and Climate.
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This year theme, Water for cities: responding to the urban challenge, aims to spotlight and encourage governments, organizations, communities, and individuals to actively engage in addressing the defy of urban water management.
Visit the World Water Day website 2011

The UN-Water Activity Information System (UNWAIS) is an online tool for managing, analyzing, querying and disseminating information on existing programmes, projects and activities carried out by UN-Water and associated programmes.
Read more about UNW-AIS

Public consultation of WWDR4 first draft
now open!

The first draft of the upcoming 4th edition of the United Nations World Water Development Report (WWDR4) has been released and is open for public comment.

Learn more about the process here

Provide your comments until 30/12/2010

New UNEP atlas

This Atlas is a visual account of Africa's endowment and use of water resources, revealed through 224 maps and 104 satellite images as well as some 500 graphics and hundreds of compelling photos. Its visual elements vividly illustrate a succinct narrative describing and analyzing Africa's water issues and exemplifying them through the judicious use of case studies. It gathers information about water in Africa and its role in the economy and development, health, food security, transboundary cooperation, capacity building and environmental change into one comprehensive and accessible volume.

Download the publication

Right to water and sanitation is
legally binding, affirms key UN body

The main United Nations body dealing with human rights has affirmed that the right to water and sanitation is contained in existing human rights treaties, and that States have the primary responsibility to ensure the full realisation of this and all other basic human rights.

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More on drinking water and sanitation

World Water Day 2010 website

World Water Day in Cape Town,
South Africa.

The African Ministers' Council on Water (AMCOW) is pleased to join UN-HABITAT and UN-Water in co-organizing World Water Day (WWD) 2011. The global observance of WWD 2011, to be hosted by the Government of South Africa in Cape Town with the theme Water for cities: responding to the urban challenge, provides a good opportunity to discuss a range of options for tackling urban water and sanitation challenges facing the African continent.

More on World Water Day 2011

New UNEP publication

Blue Harvest: Inland Fisheries as an Ecosystem Service looks at the pressures and the drivers of ecosystems degradation, affecting inland fisheries. It reviews opportunities on how to sustainably manage inland fisheries through ecosystem management approaches. Case studies in the report give examples of the status and the pressures, as well as the development of inland fisheries in different parts of the world.

Download the book