Water for a sustainable future – young people playing their part

Access to drinking water and proper sanitation should be a matter of course. But this is not yet the case. Indeed, the needs recognised by the UN as two independent human rights since 2010 remain no more than wishful thinking for a large part of the world's population. Around 2.2 billion people continue to live without access to safe, sufficient and affordable drinking water – with over 115 million of them relying on dubious sources of surface water such as from lakes, ponds or even puddles.

The situation is no better when it comes to access to sanitary facilities. Around 3.5 billion people live without clean and well-maintained sanitation, and more than 550 million people have to meet their needs without any infrastructure at all.

Accordingly, the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) is committed to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6 on water of the 2030 Agenda – a goal for which Switzerland fought vigorously at the UN in 2015. The global community's efforts to date have lagged far behind the goals set. Forecasts that the demand for fresh water will exceed the available supply by 40 per cent by 2030 do not inspire much confidence that the goal can be achieved. With innovations such as the Blue Peace initiative, the SDC seeks to strengthen cooperation between different actors across borders, sectors and generations in order to promote peace, stability and prosperity in particularly critical regions such as the Middle East and Central Asia.

One Million Youth Actions Challenge
 

The SDC purposely involves young people in the search for concrete solutions. In 2021, for example, it launched the 1 Million Youth Actions Challenge (1MYAC), which aims to stimulate one million concrete actions by young people on four Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These cover the topics of water (SDG 6), production and consumption (SDG 12), climate change (SDG 13) and biodiversity (SDG 15). Individuals and groups (such as school classes or entire schools) can choose from various standard actions such as collecting rainwater for watering gardens or tree nurseries, and reducing water consumption in sanitary equipment such as taps or toilet flushes.

To draw attention to this initiative, a call for participation in a Guinness World Record was launched. The 1MYAC initiative to be included as a Guinness World Record, was achieved in Basel in April 2024 during the 3^rd International Cooperation Forum Switzerland by composing the figure 1,000,000 with the largest number of postcards. In total, 6,666 blue postcards displaying local proverbs and sayings related to water and peace were used for the project, submitted by young people from all over world.

World Youth Parliament for Water – the voice of youth for a sustainable future
 

The SDC also supports the political and overall societal role of young people at the national, regional and international levels. One of the ways it does this is by promoting national “youth parliaments” for water, which champion the concerns of young people with regard to water. In order to strengthen the impact of these national structures, the young activists come together as the World Youth Parliament for Water at international events. They explain their points of view, communicate key messages, make concrete demands and propose innovative and effective solutions.

Supported by the International Secretariat for Water, more than 370 youth organisations world-wide were involved in the run-up to the UN 2023 Water Conference in New York. At the same time, the global campaign #FillUpTheGlass was launched, and the global youth movement for water was strengthened.

Finally, around 60 representatives of the World Youth Parliament for Water took part in the 10^th World Water Forum in Bali in May 2024. With impressive active participation in over 60 events and a strong presence in all high-level discussion forums, the voice of youth in favour of a sustainable future for water was effectively strengthened.

We Are Water
 

Within the framework of the Water Forum in Mali, the SDC, in conjunction with the International Secretariat for Water, mobilised young people to address the issue of plastic pollution through a One Million Youth Actions Challenge initiative. With the support of environmental activist and beach curator Liina Klauss, members of the Bali Youth Parliament for Water collected about one tonne of waste from which nearly 10,000 plastic sachets were extracted to compose the slogan “WE ARE WATER”.

(SDC/wi)

More information:

Link to Blue Peace Initiative

Link to One Million Youth Action Challenge

3^rd Swiss International Cooperation Forum Switzerland