Celebrating World Water Day

WWD aims to highlight the importance of water and raise awareness of the 2.2 billion people living without access to safe water. It is about taking action to tackle the global water crisis. A core focus of WWD is to support the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6: Water and Sanitation for all by 2030.

On a normal day, the world would be pushing for stakeholders to rethink access to safe drinking water, particularly for those left behind. This includes girls and women whose lack of access to water limits their potential in all aspects of life. Further, Persons with Disability (PwDs) also get disproportionately affected by the lack of disability friendly water access points.

According to the United Nations SDG 6 portal, at least 29 % of the world’s population has no access to a safely managed drinking water service. A safely managed drinking water service is defined as an improved drinking water source that is located on the premises and available when needed, and free of fecal and priority chemical contamination.

In Kenya, only 59 percent of Kenyans have access to basic water services.

While more than half of the world’s population has access to safe water, the remaining global 29 % and 41 % in Kenya completely shifts our focus. These could include persons living in informal settlements and living in the streets.

Every year, the World Water Day highlights a specific aspect of freshwater. The theme also sets the focus for the annual World Water Development Report. An annual theme is proposed by UN-Water Members and Partners two to three years in advance. At its meeting in Rome last week, UN-Water decided that “Groundwater: making the invisible visible” – proposed by IGRAC – will be the theme for the World Water Day 2022.

The WWDR 2022 aims at calling world-wide attention for groundwater, a natural resource of enormous importance, but often poorly understood, undervalued or even overlooked. Attention is needed to catalyze optimal use of the enormous opportunities offered by groundwater to human societies for gaining social, economic and environmental benefits, including the potential contributions of groundwater to climate change adaptation and to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).