World Water Day 2023 asks people to “Be the change you want to see in the world”.
Every year since 1993, World Water Day (22 March) raises awareness and inspires action to tackle the water and sanitation crisis. It is about taking action to tackle the global water crisis of the 2.2 billion people living without access to safe water.
World Water Day 2023 is about accelerating change to solve the water and sanitation crisis.
Dysfunction throughout the water cycle undermines progress on all major global issues, from health to hunger, gender equality to jobs, education to industry, and disasters to peace. In 2015, the world committed to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 as part of the 2030 Agenda – the promise that everyone would have safely managed water and sanitation by 2030. Right now, we are seriously off-track. Billions of people and countless schools, businesses, healthcare centers, farms, and factories are being held back because their human rights to water and sanitation still need to be fulfilled.
There is an urgent need to accelerate change – to go beyond ‘business as usual.’ The latest data show that governments must work on average four times faster to meet SDG 6 on time, but this is not a situation that any single actor or group can solve.
Water affects everyone, so we need everyone to "Be the change" and take action.