World Water Day History
World Water Day is celebrated around the world, every year on 22nd March. The day is basically celebrated to draw attention to the importance of freshwater and to increase the awareness among the people about its conservation.
An international day to celebrate freshwater was first officially recommended by United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in the year 1992 . The United Nations General Assembly responded by finally announcing 22 March, 1993 as the first World Water Day.
Every year, World Water Day highlights a particular aspect of freshwater by assigning different themes.
World Water Day Themes
The campaign is specially promoted by one of the UN agencies that encourages general population to listen and understand about the water issues, as well as inspire them to participate in the international activities for the World Water Day. Since the beginning of this event UN-Water selects a World Water Day theme, that spreads a global message corresponding to a current or future challenge and also lead the UN agencies to celebrate the World Day for Water.
Let us have a look on the themes for the past few years :
-The theme for World Water Day celebration of the year 2010 was “Clean Water for a Healthy World”.
-The theme for World Water Day celebration of the year 2011 was “Water for cities: responding to the urban challenge”.
-The theme for World Water Day celebration of the year 2012 was “Water and Food Security”.
-The theme for World Water Day celebration of the year 2013 was “Water Cooperation”.
-The theme for World Water Day celebration of the year 2014 was “Water and Energy”.
-The theme for World Water Day celebration of the year 2015 was “Water and Sustainable Development”.
However, the theme for the year 2016 is “Water and Jobs”. And for the coming years 2017 and 2018 are “Wastewater” and “Nature-based Solutions for Water” respectively.
“Water and Jobs”
2016 World Water Day theme is “Water and Jobs” that focuses on the two-way relationship between water and decent work agenda in the quest for viable development. Water is an important constituent of life. But its role is just not confined to quenching thirst and boosting health, it is also vital for creating jobs and supporting social, economic and human development.
Today, around half of the world’s workers i.e 1.5 billion people are employed in water-related sectors. Furthermore, roughly all jobs, regardless of the sector, depend directly on water. Yet, in spite of the indelible link between jobs and water, millions of people whose sustenance depend on water are ofttimes not acknowledged or protected by basic labour rights.
On the day of the celebration, UN-Water presents the plan for the World Water Day 2016 campaign, which is coordinated by ILO with the support of other UN-Water Members and Partners.
Participants get a chance to learn more about the theme of World Water Day, get the most recent updates on how the international community perceives the role of decent work in encouraging the human right to water and people will be welcomed to get involved in the campaign. Besides that, participants will also discover the logo of the World Water Day 2016 .
Get to the core of the plan and more at UN Water
