Issue 8: April – May 2001

UNU co-hosted meetings
discuss global
water issues:
primer for 3rd
World Water
Forum

United Nations University (UNU), in partnership with the World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP) and the 3^rd World Water Forum Secretariat, is organizing a series of meetings that highlight critical issues for the management of global water resources. 

The first meeting, held at UN House in Tokyo April 4 and 5, focused on synthesizing global water assessments into information for the World Water Development Report. The second meeting, held April 6 at the ANA Hotel, was a public symposium on human water stewardship.

A growing water crisis threatens security, stability and environmental sustainability worldwide. In its recent Millennium Declaration, the United Nations called on the nations of the world to “halve by 2015 the proportion of people who are unable to reach, or to afford, safe drinking water” and to “stop the unmanageable exploitation of water resources.” 

In response, the UNU has focused its projects on issues dealing with the management of water as a resource — particularly across national boundaries — and the evaluation of water quality in coastal areas. A recent study by the UNU has developed new methodologies for treating the water contamination by arsenic, a problem now faced by millions in Bangladesh and India.