Management decisions to alleviate poverty, to allow economic development, to ensure food security and the health of human populations as well as preserve vital ecosystems, must be based on our best possible understanding of all relevant systems.
It is a comprehensive review that gives an overall picture of the state, use and management of the world’s freshwater resources and aims to provide decision-makers with tools to formulate and implement sustainable water policies.
As a result of a Global Stakeholder Survey in 2012, UN-Water decided to change the periodicity of the WWDR into an annual production with a thematic focus on different strategic water issues.
The content produced for the WWDR serves as basis for the celebrations of World Water Day (22 March) and related discussions throughout the year.
Through a series of assessments, the Reports provide a mechanism for monitoring changes in the resource and its management and tracking progress towards achieving targets, particularly those of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
WWAP fulfils this mission by assisting in the preparation of case studies in countries around the world in order to highlight the state of water resources where different physical, climatic and socio-economic conditions prevail.
In the global strategy to improve the overall quality of water resources, local actions often present the starting point the most fruitful efforts.
The WWAP case studies aim to provide a snapshot of those efforts while showing the significance of the decisions taken at local, sub-national and national levels.
The World Water Assessment Programme coordinates a Task Force to produce the SDG 6 Synthesis Report 2018, composed by some UN-Water members, such as CEO Water Mandate, FAO, ILO, UN-Habitat, UN-Water Technical Advisory Unit (TAU), UNDP, UNECE, UNEP, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNU, WHO, WMO and World Bank.