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STATEMENT BY THE MINISTER FOR ENVIRONMENT OF ITALY, PICHETTO FRATIN at UN 2023 Water Conference side event: “PARTNERSHIPS AND COOPERATION FOR WATER: THE MAIN FINDINGS OF THE UNITED NATIONS 2023 WORLD WATER DEVELOPMENT REPORT AND EXPERIENCES FROM COUNTRIES

Pichetto Fratin

I am very pleased to be opening this side event on Partnerships and Cooperation for Water organized by Italy and the UNESCO’s World Water Assessment Programme, headquartered in Perugia and that Italy has been supporting since 2006.

Italy has always been committed to working towards achieving the goals set out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, especially to providing financial support to the UNESCO-Perugia Programme, which coordinates the publication of the annual UN World Water Development Report.

The UN World Water Development Report, which was mentioned this morning also by the UN SG Guterres in his opening remarks, is the flagship report on water of the whole UN system and has become a benchmark since its first edition in 2003.

This authoritative report provides Member States with specialized guidance in understanding the critical role of science-based knowledge to shape sustainable, water policies.

Water is a cross-cutting issue that touches every aspect of sustainable development – social, economic and environmental, and that requires partnerships and new models of partnership and cooperation at the local, national, basin area and global levels.

The 2023 WWD Report shows us the pathway to follow by providing examples and in-depth analysis of the current water situation. I recommend you look through it and take advantage of its wealth of content. While I leave the technical details to the experts, this report also strikes me for its vision.

I am sure this vision will be inspiring for all the Water Conference participants. As I am sure that the concrete examples of partnerships and cooperation at the local, regional and national levels from Italy and other Countries that we will share in the second half of this side event, will contribute to strengthening our efforts to address the global challenges on water within the Water Action Agenda.

I thank all our guests and speakers for joining us today and wish you all a productive session.

Thank you.