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Mountains, the world’s water towers

17.04.2014

A new issues brief calling for mountains to be recognized in the sustainable development goals (SDGs) was issued by the Mountain Partnership in April 2014. The United Nations (UN) is currently discussing the goals, which are to succeed the Millennium Development Goals in 2015 and shape the Post-2015 development agenda.

Mountain Partnership members see mountain ecosystems as key to reducing poverty, eradicating hunger and improving nutrition, the cornerstones of sustainable development. They call for developing mountains sustainably and equitably so that mountain communities, as well as those living downstream, can continue to rely on them.  

The four-page brief, part of the Mountain Partnership’s advocacy work, was drafted to support UN Member States and the UN Open Working Group (OWG) on SDGs in New York to push for the inclusion of goals, targets and indicators that ensure mountains can continue to contribute to sustainable development. Safeguarding mountain ecosystems for their ongoing provision of water to highland and lowland communities is among the targets urged by the brief.

Through their watershed function, mountains supply more than half of humanity with water for drinking, irrigation, industry, food and energy production, according to the issues brief.

 “Ensuring access to safe and affordable drinking water and adequate sanitation for all is one of the areas the Open Working Group is focusing on and because mountains provide up to 80 even 90 percent of freshwater in some parts of the world, they should certainly be included in the SDGs,” said Mountain Partnership Secretariat Coordinator Thomas Hofer.

Mountains are mentioned in two of the nineteen focus areas that appear on the current list issued by the OWG; specifically in the sections on ‘water and sanitation’ and ‘ecosystems and biodiversity’.

The Mountain Partnership Secretariat (MPS) worked with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Centre for Development and Environment of the University of Bern (CDE), the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and other partners to produce five issues briefs. In addition to water, other briefs include forests and biodiversity, renewable energy, climate change and disaster risk reduction and a general one.

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