UN Water 2023: Accelerating the achievement of SDG 6 through partnerships
Global Research and Innovation Priorities to Achieve SDG 6: A world-wide marathon relay of ideas and recommendations on SDG-6 acceleration
This event will take place over a 24-hour period from March 20th through the 21st, 2023. The relay will start at the ASRC and end at The Roosevelt House, NY.
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals serve as the blueprint for advancing human well-being while preserving the environment. One of the main problems in achieving SDG6 on water and related SDGs is that although water crosses all aspects of life, it’s science, management and understanding has become “sectionalized”. To overcome this, there is a need to capture ideas that make water a core aspect of everybody’s day-to-day business.
Sectors such as agriculture, health and energy have a major impact on the use and quality of water. Universities can join hands ina dialogue with governmental, civil society and business stakeholders to improve this situation. Together this alliance encompasses a large diversity of perspectives and uses knowledge from a broad set of scientific disciplines.
The topic of the upcoming 2023 World Water Day, which coincides with the UN 2023 Water Conference, will be on “Partnerships”; what better moment is there to increase the awareness of the value of water and explore innovative ways through which this partnership can contribute to further improve this?
The international dialogue will be staged as a relay marathon around the planet. Its focus will be on:
·The research and innovations that are needed to improve the five pillars of the SDG 6 acceleration framework. What research is needed to accelerate, for example, the financing of the water sector, its governance, capacity development, its links to environmental stewardship, and more.
How does it work?
The event will start on March 20th at 12:00pm in New York at the ASRC, while broadcast via Zoom, and continue online around the world until the final discussion session at 11:00am March 21st.
All participating institutes will be organized in region and time zone groupings. In these groups a central hub will lead the debate. The central group hub passes the debate on to the next central group hub. All sessions will take place in Zoom and are open to participants from the two time zones.
After 9 sessions and 24 hours, there will be a final synthesis/closing session at the Roosevelt House in NY from 2:00pm-4:00pm EST on March 21st. All outcomes of the marathon will be shared here and then transferred to the main UN event that will start at noon on March 22nd.
The groups and example locations are shown in the table below.
| NYC Day | NYC Time (EDT) | Group (approx.) | Local example | Local Time |
| 20 March at ASRC | 12:00-14:00 | N America | US/Can
US/Can/Mex US/Can/Mex US/Can – Pacific Rim US (AK) |
12:00-14:00 – 20 Mar
11:00-13:00 – 20 Mar 10:00-12:00 – 20 Mar 09:00-11:00 – 20 Mar 08:00-10:00 – 20 Mar |
| 20 March | 15:00-17:00 | S America/Carib | Peru
Bolivia E Brazil |
14:00-16:00 – 20 Mar
15:00-17:00 – 20 Mar 16:00-18:00 – 20 Mar |
| 20 March | 17:00-19:00 | Pacific Islands | US (Hawaii)
E Polynesia Kiribati Vanuatu Guam |
12:00-14:00 – 20 Mar
13:00-15:00 – 20 Mar 10:00-12:00 – 21 Mar 09:00-11:00 – 21 Mar 08:00-10:00 – 21 Mar |
| 20 March | 20:00-22:00 | W Pacific Rim | Sydney
Perth Tokyo Auckland |
11:00-13:00 – 21 Mar
08:00-10:00 – 21 Mar 09:00-11:00 – 21 Mar 13:00-15:00 – 21 Mar |
| 20 March | 22:00-00:00 | SE Asia/China | China/Manila
Bangkok |
10:00-12:00 – 21 Mar
09:00-11:00 – 21 Mar |
| 21 March | 00:00-02:00 | S/Cent Asia | Karachi
Hyderabad Kabul Tashkent |
09:00-11:00 – 21 Mar
09:30-11:30 – 21 Mar 08:30-10:30 – 21 Mar 09:00-11:00 – 21 Mar |
| 21 March | 02:00-04:00 | Middle East/Russia | Tehran
Tel Aviv Istanbul Moscow |
09:30-11:30 – 21 Mar
08:00-10:00 – 21 Mar 09:00-11:00 – 21 Mar 09:00-11:00 – 21 Mar |
| 21 March | 04:00-06:00 | Africa | Addis Ababa
Cape Town Lagos |
11:00-13:00 – 21 Mar
10:00-12:00 – 21 Mar 09:00-11:00 – 21 Mar |
| 21 March | 06:00-08:00 | Europe | Athens
Paris London Reykjavik |
12:00-14:00 – 21 Mar
11:00-13:00 – 21 Mar 10:00-12:00 – 21 Mar 10:00-12:00 – 21 Mar |
| 21 March | 11:00-13:00 | Final session | NYC | 11:00-13:00 – 21 Mar |
21 March 14:00-16:00 Closing Synthesis Session at the Roosevelt House
To register:
- For the opening session at the ASRC: See here.
- For the Pacific Islands Time Zone Session: See here.
- For the Southeast Asia/China Time Zone Session: See here.
- For the South America/Caribbean Time Zone Session : See here.
- For the Africa Time Zone Session: See here.
- For the European Time Zone Session: See here.
- For the closing session at the Roosevelt House on 47-49 E 65th St., New York: See here.
- Note: Once you have registered and received the Zoom link to join online, it is the same link for all sessions until March 21st, at 11am EsT. Only the Roosevelt House closing session requires a different Zoom link- acquired by registering.
Flyers to circulate:
ASRC Opening 3/20 Session Flyer
Roosevelt House 3/21 Closing Session Flyer
Full Agenda:
Organizing committee
Eddy Moors, Charles J. Vörösmarty, Graham Jewitt, Anthony Cak
More information about the UN 2023 Water Conference can be found here:
Sign up for a periodic newsletter about the Conference here: