Dave Trouba, WSSCC, discussed the preparations for World Toilet Day 2018, which will take place on 19 November and will focus on the theme, “When Nature Calls”.

The 29th UN-Water Meeting convened from 24-25 August 2018, in Stockholm, Sweden, immediately prior to the annual meeting of World Water Week. Approximately fifty delegates of UN-Water Members and Partners registered for the event, representing the UN Secretariat and UN agencies, funds, programmes and other entities, multilateral environmental agreement secretariats, and civil society organizations. An additional twenty observers from governments and other organizations attended.

During the meeting, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) was welcomed as the newest UN-Water Member, and applications from CDP (formerly Carbon Disclosure Project) and Sanitation and Water for All were approved as the newest Partner and Partner with special status, respectively.

Agenda items included updates on the outcome of the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), the recommendations from the High Level Panel on Water, and the “Global call to action for WASH in healthcare facilities” and “WASH4Work” initiatives. Ongoing monitoring initiatives were discussed, and a panel discussed their experiences with promoting water and sanitation issues within their own organizations.

In preparation for the in-depth review of implementation of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 (clean water and sanitation) during the July 2018 meeting of the HLPF, UN-Water Members had coordinated their efforts to establish a baseline for the SDG 6 indicators in the SDG 6 Synthesis Report 2018, and the 29th UN-Water meeting discussed follow-up efforts related to this Report. Participants highlighted that the discussion at the HLPF revealed a high level of interest within the international community for addressing challenges related to SDG 6 implementation and also that the limited time allotted to discussing SDG 6 during the HLPF was not adequate to fully explore and move SDG 6 implementation forward. In this regard, discussions at the 29th UN-Water meeting focused on the recommendation by the High Level Panel on Water to convene high-level meetings on water and sanitation issues. Participants also discussed plans for upcoming events, including the themes for future celebrations of World Water Day and World Toilet Day. An important challenge that was raised in many of these discussions was how to ensure proper follow-up on high-level recommendations and awareness raising efforts, to translate the messages for change in water and sanitation policy and practices into actions at country-level.

Dais during the opening session of the 29th meeting of UN-Water. L-R: Federico Properzi, UN-Water Chief Technical Adviser; Joakim Harlin, UN-Water Vice-Chair; Gilbert Houngbo, UN-Water Chair; Nicolas Franke, Special Assistant to the UN-Water Secretary/Sustainable Development Officer; and Leanne Burney, UN-Water Programme Officer.

Amanda Marlin, UNICEF, provided an overview of the timeline of WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) outputs during a discussion of the Integrated Monitoring Initiative.

Dais during the panel discussion on “Internal Advocacy – Promoting Water and Sanitation in Your Own Organisation.” L-R: Aaron Salzberg, US Department of State; Carol Chouchani Cherfane, UN-ESCWA; Amanda Marlin, UNICEF; Mark Smith, IWMI; and Olcay Ünver, FAO.

Claudio Caponi, WMO, presented during the agenda item on possible scenarios for UN high-level meetings on water and sanitation.