Presented by Guller Yazgı AKATA, Youth Representative of the LMGlobal.Org to the United Nations Department of Global Communications; and the Organization’s Youth Delegate at the #UN2023Water Conference

Background: UN 2023 Water Conference – Side Event (Outside-UN) W-175, titled, “What is your commitment to the #WaterActionDecade? Seven core #WaterAction ideas toward #WaterAwareness, #WaterConscience and #GameChangers” delivered by LMGlobal.Org in NYC on March 21, 2023. #UN2023WaterConference
The core purpose of the #W175 side event is to contribute toward #WaterAwareness & #WaterConscience concepts on the local, national, and global levels through promoting and engaging with diverse communities and multi-stakeholders with seven (7) core #WaterAction Ideas, which are: 1. #WaterForestryClimateChange #StopConstantForestFires #ForestryForGroundwater #StopClimateEngineering #StopDeforestation 2. #MilitaryAccountabilityOnWater #GameChanger 3. #GrayWaterIsAMust #GreenWater 4. #WasteProcessorForOurPlanet #StopPlasticPollution 5. #WaterForALL #WaterForLife #DevelopmentNotAgainstPeopleWill 6. #WaterForInspiration #WaterInArts #WaterInPoetry #WaterForPeace 7. #WaterAwareness #WaterConscience.
• Below, is the summary of the Youth Presenter of the session, Güller Yazgı Akata follows:

Core Water Action Idea 5: #WaterAction #WaterForAll #WaterForLife #DevelopmentNotAgainstPeoplesWill

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
– Maya Angelou

As a kid, I would sit behind my dad’s rusty and dusty typewriter, play with it as if it was a toy. Each sound my hits on the letters made would be the sound of my heartbeats. Playing with the typewriter, I would write and imagine myself advocating for a better world, being heard. This past week was only the beginning of this dream coming true. It has been beyond a pleasure, a dream come true, to have participated in the United Nations Water Conference 2023. It was not only days of raising more awareness and appreciation around water, but also an atmosphere of enrichment, in which all of us have shared our own unique ways of being a hummingbird, doing the best we can.

My way of taking action was through my presentation and speech at LMGlobal.Org’s side event (Outside-UN #W175) as the Youth Representative of LMGlobal.Org to the United Nations Department of Global Communications. I also made a further commitment to establish a podcast to raise awareness and appreciation about water, educate people about the water crisis and promote water initiatives by embracing an intersectoral approach. Here is the speech I have made for announcing my commitment:

“Hello, my name is Yazgi. I am the Youth Representative of The Light Millennium to the United Nations Department of Global Communications. In two years, two thirds of the world population will face water scarcity, and 50% of our population will live in water stressed areas. In seven years, this issue could displace 700 million people. Without a doubt, this burden will be mainly inherited by the youth, who make up 25% of the world’s population. This is an urgent call for revolutionizing our culture of water practices embraced by not only people, but also by collective entities such as governments and corporations. For a world that practices universal declaration of human rights, for a world of advancement in business and in diversity, equity and inclusion; I address collective entities such as governments and corporations to include at least 20% youth in their decision-making process, especially starting from local practices. Followingly, my commitment to water action decade is to establish a podcast that raises awareness around youth and its interaction with water.”

Followingly, for my presentation I have started with the examples of ancient civilizations, which are all settled around water demonstrating that our human civilization is built upon water. To reason this argument, I have given examples of water’s usage areas, which are not limited to drinking, sanitation and cooking, but also include cooling, traveling, agriculture, and transportation. Then, I have provided facts about the water crisis our planet is going through as of the moment in spite of our civilization relying on water. As of now 2.2 billion people lack the access to clean drinking water, 4.2 billion people lack the access to sanitation service; 3 billion people do not have access to basic hand washing facilities, whereas 2 billion people live in high water stress areas. Our agriculture system takes up of 70% of water withdrawal while 80% of water goes back into the system without being treated or reused.

Followingly, 90% of our disasters are weather related being either floods or droughts. The toll created by the water crisis is mainly taken by women and girls. Women and girls spend 200 million hours collecting water, 266 million hours finding a new place to go. Every two minutes a kid dies due to water crisis, we lose 1.2 million people due to the water crisis. If we do not take action water scarcity could displace 700 million people by 2030, 2/3 of the population will face water scarcity, and 50% of population will live in water-stressed areas by 2025.

Then, I have raised the crucial question of what youth’s role is in the decision-making processes especially since youth is the one to inherit this toll. Almost half the world is under 30 years old. However, less than 6% parliamentarians under 35, average age in parliament is 53, only 1.65% parliamentarians in their 20s, and 2/3 countries do not consult young people in decision making. Although youth is not so involved in the decision-making process of policies, youth is innovative and wants to take action, and I have followed up with giving examples of youth initiatives established in the aims of better culture of water practices. One of these practices is called Water Deploy, which is a water tank that requires 75% less water to manufacture. Followingly, Bondh E Shams is another water initiatives that works for water sanitation.

After this, I have addressed big tech companies to mobilize artificial intelligence and big data to build better collaboration among people to take action against the water crisis. Finally, I finished by presenting my proposals, which are to enhance participation of youth in politics and policymaking, collect efficient data from youth portals, support initiatives targeted towards water crisis and entrepreneurs of the youth, encourage Big Tech Companies to utilize Big Data and Artificial Intelligence towards raising awareness about the usage of water, and to build collaborative groups with members of the youth, policymakers, entrepreneurs and other professionals in order to transform how we handle water resources.

The United Nations Water Conference 2023 was once-in-a-generation conference. The first water conference in the last forty-six years. Quite the time! There were many conclusions made from the conference: financial funding support towards embracing a better culture of water usage, having a special UN appointed envoy on water, mobilizing data for taking action, giving water its true value financially, and finally collaboration of research, policy making and private institutions were the conclusions highlighted by United Nations. In addition to these, my horizon has broadened on other aspects of water as well.

Firstly, if SDG6 is achieved, achieving the other SDGs is may not be guaranteed. Nonetheless, once we fail at achieving SDG6, we do not only fundamentally fail to achieve the other SDGs, we also lose the progress we have made as humanity during the last decades. As stated in the conference water must be perceived “as an investment, not as an aid”, and treated as “global common good” by the international community.

When it comes to our source of life, it is “too little or too much or too dirty”. While some areas suffer from its scarcity, some suffer because it is too much. It is important to take the needed measures to prevent this crisis from getting worse, but also, we have to adapt our systems and ways of life accordingly. Building the sufficient infrastructure is the key here.  During the conference, I learnt about the practices embraced by the Netherlands and Singapore in order to build solutions around their own challenges with water. Both of these countries use the spaces they have embraced for better water practices (one for drainage, one for desalination) as multifunctional areas that also serve to community. With Rotterdam Water Square, the Netherlands collects rainwater, and uses it for different purposes while also providing space to the community.

On the other hand, Keppel Marina East Desalination Plant in Singapore has water treatment equipment underground while providing space for community recreation on its green rooftop. Climate proof streets and cities require space, building them requires funding and knowledge, but even more so building them requires imagination. Initiatives like Rebuild By Design helps communities reimagine spaces bringing research, local communities and policymaking together. This initiative also provides substantially insightful data on the vulnerability of communities based on research in their “Atlas of Disaster”. Providing such data to communities is vital regarding water crisis.

When the water is scarce, which often times is a suffer of developing countries, the solutions are technology related and not very affordable. Solutions regarding water scarcity should be made more affordable, which is possible by the collaboration of researchers, innovators and entrepreneurs.  While hundreds of commitments were made in the conference along with powerful funds being created, these funds should be mobilized in the areas of need first, and how these funds are used must be monitored often and regularly. Furthermore, a lot of commitments were made from public money in addition to some private, but more private money should be enforced to make commitments/ further their commitments towards better use of water. This would lighten some burden on funding issues.

Data is the basis of truth, and awareness of truth is basis of healthy decision-making. Nonetheless, such data is not in the same availability of water. Some places on our planet lack great amount of data, and have to be monitored through satellites. This lack of data compromises decision-making processes. For building solutions and enhancing research, it is vital to have real time data monitoring of water. Moreover, if there is sufficient amount of data tools that are used to analyze it are also to be accounted for as well as uncertainties, which need to be communicated while delivering products. Data is a fundamental part when it comes to taking water action, but ethical gathering of data, fairness of it, and implementing indigenous knowledge during the processes must also be considered in order to build our societies both physically and socially resilient.

As an addition to these concepts of building both physically and socially more resilient communities, financial funding and utilizing data, issues of transboundary waters, pricing water according its true value, embracing indigenous knowledge were other concepts that were pronounced. While this is a progress, I have questions and concerns in mind. In spite of having some percent youth in the conference, and allowing the chance for the youth to make a statement during the conference, how involved is youth, really? I believe meaningful involvement of youth is fundamental. Youth’s involvement has been mainly tied with the percentages of youth involved in conferences, being in decision-making rooms whereas to me, meaningful involvement of youth involves having more youth led projects. Additionally, during the conference mainly conversations revolved around areas that traditionally deal with water scarcity or floods. Nonetheless, disasters change an areas mobility around water a lot since it is observed in the after effects of the February 6^th earthquake of Southeastern Türkiye.

Moreover, in my opinion water crisis in areas of conflict were not discussed enough. Finally, “resilience” was an emphasized word of the conference, but what does it mean? To what extent communities will be resilient, how do we measure resilience? Yes, we leave no one behind, but these are also useful questions to consider.

Key messages from this conference were to work with industry, work collaboratively, and mobilize technology. Importance of inclusivity and community driven approaches while taking action was emphasized often. The relationship of research, policymaking, and private sector is fundamental to achieving SDG6.

The three-day intense conference was the first step of an everlasting road rather than a final destination. My horizon was not only broadened in General Assembly, Interactive Dialogues or Side-Events, but also by the people that I have met in the elevators, queues, and many more places. Following Maya Angelou’s quote, now that I know better, I am ready to do better.

Presentation

About: Güller Yazgı Akata, born in Istanbul, Türkiye, is a passionate individual, aims to build data driven solutions to humanitarian issues. Akata, currently is the Youth Representative of LMGLobal.Org. She also is a scholar of Yıldızlar Education Fund as a Computer Science (B.S.) student with a minor in PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) at University at Buffalo.
After losing her father at the age of nine, she took an entrance exam to Darüşşafaka Schools, which is a school and a non-governmental organization dedicated to provide quality education to gifted kids, who lost either one or both parent/s and are of underprivileged backgrounds. Her success in this exam changed her life. During her time, in addition to playing basketball in the school team, she took part in various school clubs and got involved with organizations such as Best Buddies, Space Camp, CS Bridge.
Coming from personal experience of the effects of how efforts put to do good in world could change someone’s life centuries later, she embraced volunteerism. Akata, volunteers regularly with her university’s Circle K Club. In addition to her roles as the Public Relations Chair in her university’s Association for Computing Machinery Club, and underclassmen representative in her university’s Society of Women Engineers Club her efforts have been recognized by prestigious organizations such as FIRST, Destination Imagination, and Department of State.
She believes in the power of the collaboration of individuals, enrichment of inclusion, and doing the best one can.

Event Photo: Ülkü Durmazer, Volunteer, LMGlobal.Org

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