13 February 2023

Welcome to the 2023 Annual Parliamentary Hearing at the United Nations.

My thanks go to the President of the Interparliamentary Union, my colleague Duarte Pacheco, for his work in bringing the voices of legislators to the United Nations.

A strong strategic partnership between the United Nations and IPU is critical to bridging the gap between ideas at the global and the national levels. 

You, through the Interparliamentary Union, turn UN resolutions and decisions into national legislation.

And you bring the issues and the aspirations of your constituents to the attention of the international community, to make their opinion and their wishes heard.

And, most importantly, to find solutions to their real-life problems.

That is why the General Assembly adopted a resolution last December highlighting the decisive role that you, as parliamentarians, play in bringing the SDGs to life. 

UN Member States recognized that your power to legislate, budget and scrutinize government action makes you a key player in the successful implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Of the 17 Goals, perhaps none are more urgent than SDG 6 on water.

Why? Because we are already in the midst of a water crisis that will inevitably get worse.

And nearly all climate change is felt through water.

Too much water. Or not enough. Or water that is too dirty to use, and too unsafe to drink.

Some people experience all three of these at the same time.

If we do not get the global water crisis under control, we will not be able to make progress on the Sustainable Development Goals.

Already, we have breached the planetary boundaries for water for the first time in human history.

This means that one of the red lines to keeping humanity and our planet alive has been crossed.

By the end of this decade, the demand for water is expected to exceed supply by 40 per cent.

Imagine what that world will look like.

What can we do to avoid this?

Next month, the UN will host the 2023 Water Conference, the first of its kind since 1977.

My message to all Governments has been – come to the Conference at the highest possible level and bring concrete proposals for action and transformation.

Let’s tackle this challenge.

We know how. We have the science. We have the technology. We even have the finances.

How often, as politicians, do you hear that? We have the money.

What we need is political will and action.

And do you know what else we need?

Data. And ways to verify and share the data.

We know that, according to the famous James Bond ratio .007 (point double o seven) per cent of the planet’s water is potable.

But if you ask any country, how much water they expect to have in five years? Ten years time? They don’t know the answer.

We need a global water information system.

This would change the game.

In October, I convened a meeting with some 1,200 scientists, private sector actors and civil society organisations.

Together, we came up with ten gamechangers for water and sustainability.

I will officially present them at the UN Water Conference.

We have to create the Paris moment of the water action. If we join hands, we can achieve that.

But let’s admit, so far I have been speaking about only one of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals…

And I also know that the agenda of the UN is much broader than all of the SDGs.

Last Tuesday, I invited scientists to brief Member States about water and health, climate and conflict, and early warning systems.

I want to make sure that the General Assembly can operate with information that is supported by science and is data-driven.

We can argue about politics and philosophy. We may sit on different ends of culture or tradition.

Our countries can have divergent interests – yet, we are united by science.

Because it is the shared knowledge base that we can build on in this time of multiple, cascading, compound and interlinked global crises. 

And that is why my motto for this General Assembly session is “solutions through solidarity, sustainability and science”. 

Dear Friends,

I ask you to support what we’re doing here at the UN and to take it back to your constituents. 

You are the ones that can fully reach our goals at the level that matters: the level that will impact real people.

Yes, the eight billion who all rely on us.

Our mission is to support solutions that have a direct, tangible impact on people’s lives. 

And that is what this year’s hearing is about.

Let us work together in service of “We the Peoples”.  The first sentence of the UN Charter.

We need all hands on deck to change the game.

Because business as usual is not an option anymore.

We must transform this world.

I thank you.