World Water Day 2023: Accelerating Change

In 2015, nations committed to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 as part of the 2030 Agenda – the promise that everyone would have safely managed water and sanitation by 2030. 

Right now, we are seriously off-track. Billions of people and countless schools, businesses, healthcare centers, farms, and factories are held back because their human rights to water and sanitation are not fulfilled. 

Each year about 1.4 million people die due to illnesses related to lack of water, sanitation, and hygiene. (WHO 2022).

1 in 4 people worldwide has no access to water considered safe for consumption. Safe drinking water from sources located on-premises, free from contamination, and available when needed. 44% of wastewater is derived from homes, is not processed or purified, and ends up in nature with all the hazardous contents.

SDG 6 ensures the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all by 2030. The reality of SDG6 is the existing deficiency in the water cycle, which complicates and stalls the advances of most goals like healthcare, ending hunger worldwide, gender equality in the labor market, proper industry-oriented education, calamity, and peace.

In Aruba, the concern is to close the water cycle. The Department of Nature and Environment (DNM) urges more responsible and circular water usage. It includes the collection of rainwater and or air-conditioning water and reusing it. We can also use processed laundry wastewater for agricultural use.

Wastewater deposited at the RWZI ensures that untreated sewage water does not end up in the ocean and the level of contaminants drastically reduced.  

It is now essential to make the changes and take action to make a difference to help reach the solution and desired goals. As families, schools, and work, we can achieve this by adapting our habits and making the needed changes and contributing to water management in our daily life.

From March 22 to March 24, the UN-Water Conference is held in New York and the Prime Minister of Aruba, Mrs. Evelyn Wever-Croes, and Minister of Nature, Mr. Ursell Arends, attend this important conference and committed Aruba to the achievement of the Water Action Agenda 2030.

On World Water Day, we have to come together and accelerate progress.

How can you be more involved with the theme of water and sanitation on World Water Day 2023?

• Learn more on www.worldwaterday.org.
• Be the hummingbird https://www.unwater.org/bethechange/
• Follow the UN-Water Conference at www.sdgs.un.org/conference /water2030.
• Read the UN Water Development Report at www.unwater.org/publications.
• Learn more about SDG 6 through the WHO and UNICEF publications on potable water, sanitation, and hygiene.
• Share your thoughts and conversation with others to help raise awareness about the subject. Use the following hashtags in your posts #worldwaterday #dnmaruba.
• Create and share your action list to help resolve the water crisis. Use the global goal tool (www.worldwaterday.org/share) to create your social media design with a picture and message.
• Take action and commit to resolving water crisis and sanitation
• www.unwater.org/bethechange.
• Translate your action list in Papiamento to make it more accessible for action.
• Think about the meaning of water for you. Be creative and inspired and write a song, create art, a poem, or actions.
• Present this in an organized presentation at schools, organizations, or neighborhoods.
• Educators can focus on water and sanitation during their classes. How can this activity bring changes in the consumption pattern for others?
• Think about organizing a beach clean-up or cleaning waterways in wetlands and water reservoirs.

Each year the UN-Water coordinates the observation on this world day and one or more members of the UN-Water coordinates and publishes the UN World Water Development Report, together with UNESCO in the name of UN-Water. UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP) coordinates the production.

In Aruba, the DNM puts efforts into translating and publishing the reports that support the development of subjects by the UN-Water, in Papiamento. The goal remains to create awareness in the community about the importance of sustainable water and sanitation management. Let's collect water and reuse it for our plants to give more to our well-being.

Happy World Water Day 2023.