The UN-Water (2014) proposed global goal for water “Securing Sustainable Water for All” builds on and extends existing commitments. A global goal for water is fundamental to all other development goals and the proposed framework applies to all countries.

The targets for the goal for water have important explicit and implicit inter-linkages, making them mutually supportive. For example, improving access to drinking water and ensuring it is fairly shared requires good governance, balancing competing demands, and the protection of natural supply systems from pollution and water-related disasters. Furthermore, the goal for water and its targets is of direct importance to addressing other proposed areas within the post-2015 framework, such as health, energy, food, employment, gender equality and environmental sustainability. The water goal and targets thus directly address the development aims of societies, promotes human dignity and ensures achievements are sustainable over the long term leading to the following development outcomes, amongst others. The benefits outweigh by a wide margin the costs they will incur.

These UN-Water suggestions recognize that water needs both a goal in its own right and consideration in the formulation of other goals. Water is much more than a cross-cutting issue - unless the fundamental role of water and the water issues raised in this proposal can be resolved, other important elements of the new development agenda will be unachievable.

Water and water infrastructure is a vital part of the foundations for sustainable development, poverty alleviation and human well-being. The strong interdependencies between water and other fundamentals such as energy and food require clearer recognition. For example, energy production requires water, just as water requires energy for its distribution, treatment and collection. Food production requires both water and energy. At another level, public health or education can only be attained if the water supply and sanitation services of a community operate correctly. Good water management is also a key determinant in eliminating inequalities and gender bias.

The UN-Water paper (A Post-2015 Global Goal for Water: Synthesis of Key Findings and Recommendations from UN-Water. UN-Water, 2014): demonstrates the magnitude and urgency of the task that needs to be accomplished at the global scale. The size of the population without access to clean and safe water and sanitation is measured in billions of people. The demands for freshwater to meet growing human needs, the imperative for wastewater treatment to preserve and protect water quality and action to arrest the impact of nutrient pollution imply a major step change from Business As Usual.

The Conference will deal with some of the main implementation challenges related to some selected topics for each of the five main targets recommended by the UN-Water proposal on the global goal for water. These are:

A. Achieve universal access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene;
B. Improve by (x%) the sustainable use and development of water resources in all countries;
C. All countries strengthen equitable, participatory and accountable water governance;
D. Reduce untreated wastewater by X%, nutrient pollution by Y% and increase wastewater reuse by Z%;
E. Reduce mortality by (x%) and economic loss by (y%) from natural and human-induced water-related disasters.