Please complete our online registration form for the lecture to join our virtual event - this will ensure that you receive the necessary technical information and login data for your session.

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) are essential public goods for human health and development. The 2010 July UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/64/292 formally recognized the right to water and sanitation and acknowledged that clean drinking water and sanitation are necessary for the realization of all human rights. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 also aims to achieve universal access to clean water and sanitation by 2030. However, five years into the implementation of the UN SDGs, the world is not on track to achieve critical human-welfare related goals including SDG 6. The Corona Virus pandemic has further exposed these inequalities and weaknesses in WASH service provision in several countries. 

Water is a fundamental resource for the realisation of SDG 6 and the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation. The availability of adequate, accessible, affordable and clean (quality) water is necessary to providing sanitation and hygiene services. But, freshwater resources are dwindling at an alarming rate due to several factors. Population increase and the resultant competition for water for domestic, industrial, energy and agricultural purposes are increasingly putting pressure on this limited resource. Climate change is an additional stressor which threatens to limit chances to realize SDG 6 and the HRWS.  Extreme climatic events such as floods, droughts and high temperatures are already impacting the quantity and quality of surface and groundwater supplies, damaging WASH infrastructure, cutting off access to sanitation facilities in deprived areas and increasing human water consumption. Unfortunately, developing countries, where access to WASH services is still low, are experiencing the worse impacts of climate change due, in part, to low adaptive capacity. Climate-related impacts have the tendency to derail national and international efforts to leave no one behind in accessing WASH services. Although governments, as the duty bearers, are working steadfastly with other stakeholders to reduce the impacts of climate change on WASH service provision, stronger collaborations are needed to fast-track the realization of key SDG indicators and the HRWS. In particular, effective collaboration between government (policymakers) and two stakeholder communities -  research/academia and business/private sector - is needed to devise optimal solutions (including management options, technological innovations) to overcome climate change impacts on WASH service provision and enhance access to WASH services for vulnerable and left behind groups in developing countries.