Global negligence has failed at least a quarter of the world’s population — 2 billion people can’t access clean drinking water and 3.6 billion don’t have access to safely managed sanitation.
Experts gather this week at the United Nations headquarters in New York for a historic three-day conference, which kicked off on Wednesday on World Water Day. This is a rare moment — the U.N. hasn’t hosted a water conference in nearly 50 years and has dubbed it “the most important water event in a generation.”
Some attendees are pushing for a fundamental change in the way water is managed and have called for it to be treated as a common good rather than a tradeable commodity. Some even want it protected under international law.