Water for Sustainable Development
The 2016 report focusses on employment related to water, and the necessity of effective and sustainable management of the resource to ensure these jobs persist. The report discusses the main sources of employment that require water to be agriculture, forestry, fisheries, energy, resource-intensive manufacturing, recycling, building and transport. These sectors combined employee half of the global workforce, and thus adequate water management is critical. To ensure proper management, coordinated policies and investments are considered to be the most effective strategy.
The 2015 report encourages the need for sustainable water use since water is at the centre of sustainable development. Pressure for water resources is increasing, which has been met with unsustainable development strategies. Combined, these factors have negatively impacted the quality and availability of water resources.
Given the interconnected nature of water and all aspects of life, decision-makers and policy developers will need to approach issues with water and sustainable development with innovative and holistic strategies. To stimulate innovation under the umbrella of water for sustainable development, ESCAP members have compiled a list of relevant knowledge publications, event opportunities, and courses in the section below.
Success in achieving targets under SDG 6 on Water and Sanitation will to a large extent depend on understanding of the interdependencies with the other SDGs.
This publication presents a systems-thinking-based framework for integration of the SDG 6 targets with the 16 other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their 161 targets.
Water security has become a very important challenge for the Asia Pacific region to be urgently addressed. How to most efficiently manage this scarce and finite resource, while catering to increasing demands related to industrial growth, agricultural production and rapid urbanization is a key challenge for the region. Erratic weather patterns are increasingly affecting water security and climate change may exacerbate the situation.