The Hungarian Water Partnership (HWP) organised a successful side event at the UN Water Conference in New York.
HWP President Dr Károly Kovács PhD (oec) and Vice President Robert Forintos were received by Csaba Kőrösi, President of the 77th UN General Assembly, during their stay in New York.
During the visit, the parties discussed the most pressing water challenges:
- In the field of providing healthy drinking water and proper sanitation even in the developed world, self-sustainable financing of water infrastructure is not guaranteed, and the state and union and federal (EU-US) funding falls far short of sustainability needs (USD 3,000-4,000 per capita investment cost). Identified and existing alternative approaches for the developing world with an investment cost of USD 70 per capita were discussed. With these solutions the most pressing challenges could be addressed of about USD 280 billion, partly compared to the USD 22,600 billion projected by the UN.
- Taking into account the responsibility for the regions (developed-developing, rural-urban) horizontally and for future generations as vertical solidarity, in addition to the principle and objective of "leaving no one behind", the call highlighting the importance of the personal engagement was also discussed. This call was presented at the online UN Water side event organised by the Hungarian Water Association (HWA) and supported by the vast majority of participants: one should be ready to spend as much on healthy drinking water and proper sanitation as on telecommunications in order to develop water awareness and water values and to promote good value choices.
