Water Policy and Strategy of UNEP

Type of Report :

UNEP (global) strategy paper

Title :

Water Policy and Strategy of UNEP

Author :

UNEP

Year Published :

2007

URL :

http://www.unep.org/Themes/freshwater/Documents/Water_and_Cities_Final.pdf

Description :

Summary

1. Since the creation of UNEP, water has played a key role in its programming. In fact, the Regional Seas Programme was one of its first flagship initiatives and remains today a strong keystone programme for UNEP. Since the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development took place in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the issues related to freshwater resources management have taken on an increasingly prominent role in the international arena. UNEP has reacted to this through various initiatives and activities. The importance of freshwater issues continues to rise at the local, national, subregional, regional and global levels as elaboratedupon in the Millennium Development Goals, the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the Commission on Sustainable Development and other forums. UNEP must continue to evolve its programming to address such freshwater issues andhas thus developed the present policy and strategy.

2. The UNEP water policy and strategy as it relates to freshwater is outlined in the annex to the present report. UNEP starts from the premise that the water policy is defined by the mandates of UNEP as requested by the UNEP Governing Council and the United Nations General Assembly and is also guided by other relevant international bodies and forums (e.g., Agenda 21, the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the Commission on Sustainable Deve