UN says water cooperation key to peace, urges global treaty

1. The UN has said cooperation across borders on shared water resources can help avert conflict and build peace and is urging all countries to join its Water Convention.

3. The UN stressed that with climate crisis and rising water scarcity worldwide, cross-border water cooperation was increasingly crucial for regional stability and conflict prevention.

5. "Water and peace are very closely inter-related," Sonja Koeppel, Secretary of the UN Water Convention, told AFP.

7. She pointed out that more than 60 percent of all freshwater resources are shared by two or more countries, including major rivers like the Rhine and the Danube in Europe, the Mekong in Asia, the Nile in Africa and the Amazon in Latin America.

9. "Cooperating over those waters is crucial for peace, for development for climate action," she said.

'Ripple effect'

A total of 153 countries globally share water resources, but only 24 of those have signed onto various cooperation agreements covering all of their shared water, UN chief Antonio Guterres pointed out in a statement marking World Water Day on Friday."

We must accelerate efforts to work together across borders, and I urge all countries to join and implement the United Nations Water Convention," he said.

Water is such a vital resource, Koeppel said, that it has the power to bring countries in conflict to the table. India and Pakistan for instance have a cooperation agreement on the usage of the Indus River.

Likewise, an agreement reached by Senegal, Mauritania, Guinea and The Gambia in the 1970s over the Senegal Basin has enabled them jointly to finance and build infrastructure that distributes water to all four countries.

She also hailed the "huge momentum" in Africa for joining the convention and highlighted that other countries should emulate Panama and Iraq who both joined the convention last year, making them the first to do so in their respective continents despite water-related challenges.

The convention was established in 1992 to help foster responsible joint management of water resources in the European region but opened up in 2016 to countries globally.