UN WORLD WATER CONFERENCE

• The UN Water Conference is an international conference that aims to better align activities by governments, companies, NGOs, and funders around a few grand challenges in the water sector.
• It serves as a platform for countries to learn from the experiences of others, transfer technology, and invest.
• The last UN Water Conference was held in 1977.
• It resulted in the first global ‘Action Plan’ recognizing that all people have the right to access safe drinking water and sanitation.
• This led to several decades of global funding and concerted effort to provide drinking water and sanitation for all.

4. Poor finances, poor water services

• The commitments made at the conference must be scrutinized to see whether they will yield universal, safe, affordable, and equitable access to water that is consistent with SDG 6.
• Meeting this target by 2030 (as envisioned by the SDG) will incur capital expenditures of $114 billion per year.
• The World Bank estimates recurring operations and maintenance for basic water and sanitation service (WASH) costs to rise from about $4 billion to over $30 billion per year by 2030, which is far more than the capital costs for basic WASH services.
• The World Resources Institute (WRI) is of the view that the commitments made by the states reflected rigour, scope, and ambition but they lacked proper finance and targets that are quantifiable in nature.
• Investment in this range would require valuing water, which in turn requires robust water measurement and accounting.
• There are ‘serious limitations in our knowledge about the volume, flux, and quality of water in lakes, rivers, soils, and aquifers.
• There are huge gaps in water usage data. The metering of water has triggered resistance from India to Ireland because of concerns about equitable access and affordability of water services.

5. Funding

• Funding from regional, national, and international sources prioritizes new water infrastructure rather than water maintenance services (World Bank study).
• It results in decreased service for water customers. World Bank estimates project recurring operations and maintenance service (WASH) costs to rise from about $4 billion to over $30 billion per year by 2030, which is far more than the capital costs for basic WASH services. Water does not qualify to be a global public good as it is not considered to be an area of urgent funding as compared to climate change.
• The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is the only international funding mechanism that has been able to cover more than 300 watersheds and an even greater number of aquifers across the political boundaries of two or more states with its grant and concessional loan.

6. India's Commitments at the Conference

• An investment of $240 billion in the water sector and efforts to restore groundwater level.
• A 2021 CAG report says that groundwater extraction in India increased from 58% to 63% between 2004-­17.
• This has been further exacerbated by climate change resulting in intermittent rainfall, which further undermines the recharge potential.
• The revised Groundwater Bill 2017 vests State groundwater boards with creating laws, managing water allocation, and other relevant issues.
• The State boards are understaffed, lack expertise and prioritize socio­political conflicts over groundwater resources.
• In international law, ‘states possess the authority to make voluntary commitments to address issues of global concern.
• These commitments are distinguished from other legal forms because they are not made pursuant to a consensus instrument to which the parties have agreed.
• They are generally independent of the commitments of other parties. 
• Efforts to ‘tackle climate change and promote environmental sustainability have led states to make voluntary commitments to curb greenhouse gases and to take measures to promote sustainability, even in the absence of a legally non­binding instrument.
• The commitments of states after the Climate Conference in Denmark (December 2009), underline this.
• But in the case of climate change, these voluntary commitments take place within the broader context of binding agreements: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement.
• Voluntary commitments are becoming an important feature in the environmental law vista, but they raise difficult issues of accountability.
• Commitments made by the states with different formats and with different content pose challenges in terms of monitoring compliance with each commitment.
• Voluntary commitments are perhaps just a necessary step in the face of inaction.

7. Outcomes of the 2023 Conference