Launch of the report and recommendations of the Global High-Level Panel on Water and Peace (Geneva, 14 September 2017)

Ms Mara Tignino, member of AIDA and of the Secretariat of the Global High Level Panel on Water and Peace at the Geneva Water Hub, attended the ceremony for the launch of the report ‘A Matter of Survival’. The Panel was launched in 2015 by fifteen countries: Cambodia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Estonia, France, Ghana, Hungary, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Oman, Senegal, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland. The Report of the Panel, in the English language, contains the analysis and recommendations adopted by the Panel after two years of work. The Report includes eight chapters, as follows:

–       The Drama of Water

–       Into the Abyss: Water in Armed Conflicts

–       An ounce of Prevention: International Water Law and Transboundary Water Cooperation

–       Quantity and Quality: Strengthening of the Knowledge-Based and Data-Driven Decision Making and Cooperation for Security and Peace Building

–       People’s Diplomacy, Inter-Sectoral Water Management and Decision Making

–       Financial Innovation for Water Cooperation

–       In Pursuit of Agency: New Mechanisms of Hydro-Diplomacy

–       Water as an Asset for Peace: Conclusions and Recommendations   

 The recommendations of the Panel tackle the prevention of water-related conflicts and the need to make water an instrument of peace. They seek to address water challenges in an integrated and comprehensive manner, at multiple levels, whether it is by fostering new practices, new institutions, water diplomacy or strengthening international water law.

According to the Chairman of the Global High-Level Panel on Water Peace, Dr. Danilo Türk :

‘The High-Level Panel on Water and Peace has concluded that the global water challenge is not only about development and human rights but it is also about peace and security. Therefore, it needs to be addressed urgently in an integrated and comprehensive way at all levels, ranging from the United Nations Security Council and other multilateral organisations to grass-root level institutions. It needs a response in terms of new thinking, new practices and new institutions in diplomacy, international law, data management, finance, security management, technology, climate change, pollution control, among other spheres. The Panel has put forward several concrete recommendations in all these areas, because we believe that managing the global water challenge is not an ordinary task. It is a matter of survival.’

The recommendations of the Panel have also been conveyed through the universal language of music. Indeed, a unique feature of the Panel’s work is that it has been accompanied and enriched by musicians from around the world. The result has been an original Symphony on Water and Peace. This Symphony, which may be listened to at https://www.genevawaterhub.org/art-water-peace, is intended to become a powerful symbol and inspiration for all efforts to make water a source of cooperation and peace.

Summaries of the report are available in English, French, Spanish and Russian. A full video of the event in Geneva is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=573&v=toQGBw3j-2E.