UNEP
Women meet in Pakistan’s Hunza Valley, where community members are restoring ailing ecosystems around the Indus River in an effort to counter flooding. The UN recognized the initiative as a World Restoration Flagship.
Fostering healthy freshwater ecosystems
UNEP worked to protect, conserve and restore the world’s lakes, rivers and aquifers, which are under mounting pressure from the triple planetary crisis.
UNEP joined the UN-Water community to launch the UN System-Wide Strategy on Water and Sanitation. UNEP and UN Water co-produced the Mid-Term Status Report on Sustainable Development Goal 6 Indicators, which set out recommendations for decision makers. The report found that half of countries are seeing freshwater ecosystems degrade and that river flows are slowing in 402 basins, including those that house the Congo, Parana and Volga rivers.
UNEP scaled up its country-level work, supporting the sustainable management of watersheds in Brazil and India, and the conservation of peatlands in the Congo Basin. UNEP also advanced a partnership with Rotary International to train its 1.4 million members as citizen scientists and track the health of freshwater bodies.
Alongside multiple partners, UNEP launched the Baku Dialogue on Water for Climate Action – a series of discussions among nations designed to elevate the role of water in climate action.