World Water Day

 In Europe, water is deeply embedded in the social, economic and institutional fabric of daily life. Safe, reliable and affordable access to water underpins human well-being and sustainable development. Significant infrastructure advances have provided many people in Europe with household water and sanitation access. However, gender disparities persist, particularly in decision-making, labour responsibilities, climate risk exposure and recognition in governance and knowledge systems. European water governance has developed under frameworks such as the European Union Water Framework Directive and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030. However, gender equality remains under-integrated in many national- and basin-level water strategies. Formal representation alone has not yielded substantive influence for women, particularly those from rural areas or minority backgrounds. Intersectional factors further shape this limited influence. For example, socio-economic stat...

  Global access to drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services improved significantly from 1990 to 2024, although major gaps remain. According to the World Health Organization (WHO)/ United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Joint Monitoring Programme report, between 2015 and 2024, 961 million people gained access to safely managed drinking water services, increasing global coverage from 68% to 74%. About 1.2 billion people gained access to safely managed sanitation services, with global coverage increasing from 48% to 58% over the same period. Despite this progress, as of 2024, 2.1 billion people still lacked safely managed drinking water, while 3.4 billion lacked safely managed sanitation services and 1.7 billion lacked basic hygiene services at home. According to the report, women and girls are most likely to be responsible for water collection. This can expose them to physical strain and safety risks, especially in remote or insecure areas. In addition, lack of privacy...

  When United Nations Member States adopted the universal, integrated and transformative 2030 Agenda and its 17 SDGs in September 2015, they expressed their determination “to mobilize the means required to implement” it. Given the central importance of sufficient “means of implementation” to achieve the SDGs, Member States adopted 43 MoI targets under Goals 1–16, denoted by letters, and a dedicated Goal 17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development. The MoI underpin the achievement of the sustainable development outcomes envisaged by the 2030 Agenda and its 17 SDGs. The UN describes MoI as “the interdependent mix of financial resources, technology development and transfer, capacity-building, inclusive and equitable globalization and trade, regional integration, as well as the creation of a national enabling environment required to implement the new sustainable development agenda, particularly in developing countrie...