The UN 2023 Water Conference took place from 22-24 March 2023 in New York and online. The conference raised awareness of the global water crisis, while deciding on concerted action to achieve internationally agreed water-related goals and targets. CDKN co-organised three virtual events. Find out more below.

The UN 2023 Water Conference aimed to unite the world for water. The main outcome was the Water Action Agenda, a collection of all water-related commitments to accelerate progress on the Water Action Decade (2018-2028) and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 

CDKN events with partners

Local voices from the global South: Community action at the centre of resilient water solutions

Organising partners: Fundación Avina, CDKN/SouthSouthNorth, Global Resilience Partnership, UN Climate Change High-Level Champions, Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano, Women's Collective of the American Gran Chaco

This event highlighted local voices from the global South, based on the COP27 Regional Resilience Hubs of Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean. During 2022, Fundación Avina and CDKN/SouthSouthNorth led the Latin America and the Caribbean and the Africa Resilience Hubs, respectively. Local stakeholders identified water resources as a key issue for climate-affected communities in both regions.

The virtual side event shared the results of the Regional Resilience Hub events and highlighted three main issues:

1. The importance of promoting regional collaborative processes to strengthen climate resilience in the water sector in the regions.
2. The critical need to include local voices in decision-making processes, particularly those of women, young people, local communities and Indigenous Peoples and respecting and promoting local knowledge.
3. The need for local communities to access climate finance, ensuring ownership of their water projects.

More information can be found here.

Event recording available below:

Andean Water Fund Platform: A proposal to face the local challenges of joint watershed management in the Andean countries

Organising partners: Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano, Fondo para la Protección del Agua and CDKN/SouthSouthNorth 

The Andean Water Platform gathers ten Water Funds in the Andean region to work on a joint vision to mobilise action towards achieving the 2030 agenda. The joint effort of these Water Funds, through a community of practice, aims to address these challenges by working together on local financial contributions or mechanisms, fostering political will and support, demonstrating greater impact at a larger scale, and peer-to-peer learning from what has or has not worked in other contexts. This virtual side event captured different points of view from stakeholders to address these challenges. 

More information can be found here.

Event recording available below:

Locally-led adaptation approaches to achieving water security: Examples and lessons from local implementation

Organising partners: Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA), CDKN and International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

This event built onto the ongoing dialogue around implementing the locally-led adaptation (LLA) agenda, which was a focus of much engagement at COP27. The event focussed on concrete lessons learnt for advancing LLA in the water sector and highlighted the potential for locally-led solutions to build climate resilience across several countries and regions.

Speakers presentations can be downloaded here.

Event recording available below: