Issue brief SDG 6 © Dan-Roizer ENSURING AVAILABILITY AND SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT OF WATER AND SANITATION FOR ALL Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6) – Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all – confirms the importance of water and sanitation in the global political agenda. Building on the relevant Millennium Development Goal, SDG 6 addresses the sustainability of access to water and sanitation by focusing on the quality, availability and management of freshwater resources. The individual targets of SDG 6 Environmental dimension of UN Environment and SDG 6 cover the entire water cycle and its SDG 6 interconnections: As the global environmental authority, the SDG 6 recognizes that countries’ social United Nations Environment Programme ➡ 6.1: provision of drinking water development and economic prosperity (UN Environment) connects the issue of depend on the sustainable management of freshwater to other aspects of sustainable ➡ 6.2: sanitation and hygiene freshwater resources and ecosystems. development, such as oceans, land and services SDG 6 acknowledges that ecosystems and agriculture. This work entails building their inhabitants, including humans, are national capacity to monitor freshwater ➡ 6.3: treatment and reuse of water users and that their activities on land ecosystem health, including water wastewater and ambient can compromise the quality and availability quality, facilitating integrated water water quality of fresh water. resources management processes and ➡ 6.4: water-use efficiency and the implementation thereof, and providing scarcity The water-related ecosystems addressed guidelines and inputs for country-level in SDG 6 include wetlands, rivers, aquifers action to protect and restore freshwater ➡ 6.5: integrated water resources and lakes, which sustain a high level of ecosystems at the national level. Through management biodiversity. These ecosystems are also vital this work, UN Environment provides support ➡ 6.6: protecting and restoring for providing multiple benefits and services, to countries in protecting and restoring water-related ecosystems such as hydropower, irrigation, humidity their freshwater ecosystems with a view and precipitation, habitats for aquatic to sustaining their ecosystem services for ➡ 6.a: international cooperation life and water purification. Well-managed generations to come. and capacity-building water-related ecosystems contribute to addressing the competing demands for As with other SDGs, the environmental ➡ 6.b: local participation in water water, mitigating climate change risks and indicators in SDG 6 are new, meaning and sanitation management helping to build community peace and trust. that this is the first time that many UN They are therefore essential for achieving Member States have had to collect, submit Facts and figures sustainable development, peace and and analyse the kind of data required to security as well as human health and well- measure progress under this Goal. As Today, around 1.9 billion people being. custodians of three indicators under SDG 6, live in potentially severely water- scarce areas. By 2050, this figure could increase to around 3 billion people. Globally, over 80 per cent of the wastewater generated by society flows back into the environment without being treated or reused. An estimated 64–71 per cent of natural wetlands have been lost since 1900 as a result of human activity. © Parelkar/UNICEF UN Environment has dedicated significant efforts to assisting countries to understand Supporting water monitoring in Fiji the purpose of, and methodologies and processes for, data collection. UN Environment helps countries to monitor and report on three of the Goal’s environmental indicators, related to the targets on freshwater ecosystem health and quality (6.3 and 6.6), and to integrated water resources management (6.5). The data is obtained through a process in which countries submit information by filling out a © UN Environment survey distributed by UN Environment. In order to provide support to countries in monitoring and reporting on targets 6.3 and These data submissions to UN Environment 6.6, UN Environment provided technical assistance in 2017 to strengthen the capacity of not only enhance analysis of the data, but countries to generate data for indicators 6.3.2 – proportion of bodies of water with good fundamentally strengthen the global data ambient water quality – and 6.6.1 – change in extent of water-related ecosystems. infrastructure which feeds into the global monitoring mechanisms for the SDGs. Data on these two freshwater indicators is often housed in different institutions and ministries, as is the case in Fiji, where UN Environment invited representatives from The data collected will contribute to an several line ministries working on water-related issues to a two-day workshop in integrated SDG 6 synthesis report for 2018, September 2017 to discuss for the first time how the Government of Fiji could best which will provide one voice from the UN collect and share water-related data. Participants were trained in the methodologies for system on SDG 6 and feed into regional and monitoring the two freshwater indicators. As a consequence, Fiji was able to submit its global discussions of the high-level political data on its water quantity and quality in rivers, open water bodies and groundwater in forum on sustainable development. The accordance with the methodological requirements. data collection to establish a 2017 baseline began in May 2017 and is being carried out ➡ Water pollution and wastewater: It the most marginalized groups and as part of an integrated SDG 6 monitoring is estimated that the vast majority of communities in society. Water pollution initiative under the UN Inter-Agency the world’s wastewater is released in impoverished areas often goes Mechanism on All Freshwater Related into water bodies without any kind of unnoticed and is left unaddressed. Issues, Including Sanitation (UN-Water). treatment. Estimates suggest that if the Increasing access to safe drinking water natural environment continues to be and sanitation for those without access SDG 6 and the transition to degraded and unsustainable pressures should be the first priority in ensuring put on global water resources, 45 per that no one is left behind. Implementing sustainable and resilient cent of the global gross domestic a holistic approach to integrated water societies product, 52 per cent of the world’s resources management can provide population and 40 per cent of global the institutional structures and multi- The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable grain production will be at risk by 2050. stakeholder processes to engage Development recognizes the rising Tackling pollution at its source and marginalized groups in decision-making on water use and allocation. inequalities, natural resource depletion, treating wastewater protects public health and the environment, mitigates environmental degradation and climate the costly impact of pollution and change witnessed across the world. All increases the availability of water UN Environment stands ready to of these challenges are closely related resources, in addition to recovering work with Member States and to water resources and water-related valuable nutrients and water resources. relevant stakeholders to ensure ecosystems, and a failure to address them that SDG 6 is fully implemented. could undermine nature’s ability to provide ➡ Extreme hydrological events: More For further information or key functions and services as well as intense and increasingly frequent questions, please contact Lis floods and droughts as a result of countries’ potential to achieve a transition to Mullin Bernhardt, Ecosystems climate change have become a growing sustainable and resilient societies. concern and pose an imminent danger Division, UN Environment at in risk-prone areas. Investment in data [email protected]. Some key messages for countries to collection and monitoring to build consider in tackling some of these countries’ anticipatory capacity is challenges include: urgently needed. The protection and restoration of water-related ecosystems ➡ Inefficiency in water use: Few countries can also help in mitigating the risks have the natural and financial resources associated with floods and droughts. required to continue increasing water extraction. The alternative is to make ➡ Rising inequality: Inequality is rising better use of the available resources. in terms of the availability and quality Agriculture offers opportunities for of water resources. People without significant water savings given that adequate access to drinking water, the agricultural sector accounts for energy and sanitation, and those living nearly 70 per cent of global freshwater in polluted areas, often constitute withdrawals. Saving just a fraction of overlapping segments of the population. that amount would significantly alleviate The impacts of water challenges and water stress globally. risks thus disproportionately affect .