• The UN 2023 Water Conference is calling for bold commitments to be made to accelerate progress on SDG 6.
• Kenya is considered a water-scarce country, with a per capita water availability of less than 600 cubic metres, below the global threshold of 1,000 cubic metres per capita.
Water CS Alice Wahome is leading a high-level government delegation to the United Nations Water Conference.
The conference will take place on March 22-24 in New York.
“The CS is expected to have bilateral talks with development partners, financial institutions and the private sector on the sidelines of the event,” a statement from Wahome said.
Stakeholders will have a conversation on Sustainable Development Goal 6 on clean water and sanitation for all.
The UN 2023 Water Conference is calling for bold commitments to be made to accelerate progress on SDG 6.
These include increased access to data and information, and increased use of economic and environmental accounting to advance the financing and protection of wetlands and other water bodies, factoring them into financial and other national accounts.
Kenya is considered a water-scarce country, with a per capita water availability of less than 600 cubic metres, below the global threshold of 1,000 cubic metres per capita.
It is estimated that an African woman spends an average of eight hours a day looking for water.
Water coverage since 1963 in the country is about 60 per cent, mainly in densely populated areas.
Kenya has also been losing 42 per cent of her water through non-revenue water, which is estimated at Sh10.6 billion due to technical and commercial challenges.
Statistics from the government show the average usage of water is approximately 40 litres per person per day in rural Kenya and 120 litres in urban areas.
The average cost of water is Sh1 per litre.
The state is currently undertaking 685 water projects at an estimated cost of Sh600 billion.
For universal access to be assured, an estimated Sh.1.8 trillion is required.
The UN Water Conference comes at a time when there is growing demand for the commodity, coupled with the impacts of climate change and poor water management.
According to the UN, water scarcity affects more than 40 per cent of people, an alarming figure that is projected to rise.
“Although 2.1 billion people have improved water sanitation since 1990, dwindling drinking water supplies are affecting every continent.”
Countries such as Kenya are experiencing water stress, and increasing drought and desertification is already worsening these trends.
The UN projects that at least one in four people will suffer recurring water shortages by 2050.
“Safe and affordable drinking water for all by 2030 requires we invest in adequate infrastructure, provide sanitation facilities, and encourage hygiene. Protecting and restoring water-related ecosystems is essential,” the UN says.
The UN says ensuring universal safe and affordable drinking water involves reaching more than 800 million people who lack basic services and improving accessibility and safety of services for over two billion.
In 2015, 4.5 billion people lacked safely managed sanitation services and 2.3 billion lacked basic sanitation.
The water conference is expected to adopt the Water Action Agenda as a main outcome representing voluntary commitments of countries and stakeholders to meet global water-related challenges.
The UN Water Conference also comes at a time a new report shows that 59 per cent of environment-related indicators for SDGs now have sufficient data to analyse progress, up from 34 per cent in 2018.
A report released on Thursday by UNEP, focusing on freshwater ecosystems, finds that while the world is not on track to achieve the environmental dimension of the SDGs, there is positive movement towards reaching these goals.
The report, Measuring Progress: Water-related ecosystems and the SDGs, calls on governments to further strengthen their statistical capacity in relation to the environment and to promote the use of non-traditional data sources – such as big data and citizen science – to fill the data gap.