Clean Water and Sanitation

Le mécanisme d’établissement périodique de rapports au titre de la Convention sur la protection et l’utilisation des cours d’eau transfrontières et des lacs internationaux (Convention sur l’eau), instauré par la Réunion des Parties en 2015, est devenu un atout important pour appuyer la mise en œuvre de la Convention.

Ce troisième rapport sur l’application de la Convention sur la protection et l’utilisation des cours d’eau transfrontières et des lacs internationaux (Convention sur l’eau) a été établi par le secrétariat de la Convention conformément à la décision VIII/1 de la Réunion des Parties à la Convention.

For the third reporting exercise, while the Arab region shows some clear progress, there is still a substantial gap that needs to be filled to fulfil the requirements of SDG indicator 6.5.2 and achieve target 6.5.

This section summarizes the findings of the third reporting round under SDG indicator 6.5.2 for the Arab region into one general finding on progress and five findings on specific issues, and proposes recommendations for each of the latter.

Expanding opportunities in non-farm activities in rural areas is a key for sustainable development without “leaving no one behind”. Where the typical farmers are small landowners, technology alone may not be able to help farmers escape from poverty, and technical advances need to be complemented by a holistic approach.

In recent years, the Government of Costa Rica has recognized the importance of promoting gender equality and women empowerment in the conservation and sustainable use of forests. Costa Rica recognizes that promoting gender equality implies not only mentioning the issue as a priority or as a principle, but also prioritizing the identification of relevant gender inequalities and proposing concrete actions to address them. This brief examines how the Government of Costa Rica, with support from UNDP, is addressing prevalent gender gaps, empowering women in the environmental sector, and comprehensively integrating gender into environmental policies, governance and finance. This, in turn, has resulted in an innovative and gender-responsive offer of environmental incentives in the country that are scaling up results at an influential level, simultaneously increasing women’s economic empowerment, promoting sustainable use of forests and combating climate change.

The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Agenda 2030) is a guiding star for countries, establishing a common vision for human and planetary well-being. However, approximately half of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets are severely or moderately off track for achievement by 2030, in part because decision-making around the SDGs is often undertaken by just a few governmental ministries. While the Agenda 2030 declares that the SDGs are “integrated and indivisible”, goals related to the environment often take a back seat to economic goals during national implementation. The UNDP led project ‘Mapping Nature for People and Planet’ demonstrates how countries can apply integrated spatial planning to facilitate inclusive decision-making for policy targets around the SDGs, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and other global conventions and frameworks. The project supports countries in developing a singular map of Essential Life Support Areas (ELSAs) that shows pathways for action to achieve multiple targets at once, including those at the nexus of nature, climate and sustainable development. At the base of the map are the country’s most pressing policy targets and current spatial data layers, hand-selected by national experts. This policy brief captures insights from this project to help policymakers use integrated spatial planning to support the achievement of SDGs, with a focus on those that are the most dependent on nature.