Youth and water

SIWI – Leading expert in water governance
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Why Water
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Youth and water

Groundwater

Groundwater is the regulator of the entire freshwater cycle, but its invisibility makes it difficult to manage and protect.

Water governance

Good water governance is key to achieving water security, fairly allocating water resources, and avoiding disputes.

Water cooperation

Water is a growing concern in many parts of the world. Countries can improve their water resilience through transboundary water cooperation over shared waters.

Water and climate

The climate crisis is essentially a water crisis. When we treat it as such, we get new tools to mitigate climate change and adapt to consequences that are unavoidable.

In 2015, the global community launched the 2030 Agenda, with 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that should be reached by 2030. Some progress has been made, but for most of the goals, the world is not on track to meet the deadline. Water can help us do better.

Water scarcity

Insufficient supply and inadequate infrastructure leaves millions of people in the world without water.

Agriculture and water

How to increase the productivity of agriculture around the world through better water management.

The impact of COVID-19

The global COVID-19 pandemic has pushed millions of people back into poverty and exposed unacceptable gaps between the rich and the poor. One in three people are still not able to wash their hands with soap and water at home.

Water and conflicts

Will future wars be fought over water? The answer is probably no, but water scarcity can contribute to conflicts.

Indigenous knowledge

Indigenous peoples are the custodians of many of the world’s most fragile and important ecosystems. They also possess invaluable knowledge about sustainability and resilience, so they have a vital role in protecting our environment.

Source-to-Sea

The source-to-sea approach focuses on the strong connection between what happens on land, along waterways, and in the sea.

Water in landscapes

A growing number of people, societies and companies are discovering the power of resilient landscapes. It is still possible to shift to more sustainable practices that recharge water, restore soil health, sequester carbon, and strengthen biodiversity – but we need to make the transformation now.

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)

More than two billion people in the world lack safely managed drinking water and twice as many lack safely managed sanitation, making WASH one of the most urgent development challenges.

Rivers

While we all depend heavily on rivers for our survival, many rivers are under constant threat from unsustainable human activities

PERSPECTIVES

More and more young people offer important contributions to solving the growing water challenges they are inheriting.

Human rights and water

Having access to water and sanitation has been recognized as a human right since 2010. But water is also essential to ensuring the fulfilment of many other rights.

Gender and water

To improve water governance, we need to take a close look at gender roles.

Water scarcity is a growing problem, especially in areas with a young population such as Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. This heavily impacts young peoples’ future prospects as well as their lives here and now.

Young people are often active water managers. Children are responsible for fetching water in one in five households in Sub-Saharan Africa, an area where six out of ten children do not have enough water to meet their daily needs. The job is not only heavy and dangerous, but it also often prevents children from attending school.

Increasing access to water for young people can have an enormous impact on their personal lives and futures. It can reduce inequality since girls are more likely to drop out of school because they are needed to collect water. Other girls are forced to leave school when they start menstruating because there are no toilets in school.

Given how important water is in the lives of many young people, they should be able to influence water decisions. Participation is one of the guiding principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and has been reiterated in many conventions and declarations – not least in the 2030 Agenda as well as in the United Nation’s Security Council Resolution 2250.

Growing trends

The half of the global population that is under 30 years old is also increasingly vocal. More and more grassroots organizations are forming to address local water issues. One example is the Agua & Juventud (Water & Youth) movement that started in Argentina in 2007 and that has now spread to more than 30 countries.

Another growing trend is how young people take their governments to court for failing to address climate change or protect nature for future generations. One example is how 25 young Colombians in 2018 brought charges against their government because of climate neglect and insufficient protection of the Amazon region.

The concept of intergenerational justice is gaining traction across the world. Many governments and international organizations are starting to create space for young people in peace and development processes in line with the UN Resolution 2250. However, more can be done to mainstream youth inclusion to legitimise the whole process from recognizing human rights to improving results. Inclusive processes are also shown to have more long-lasting success.