World Water Day – 22 March
World Water Day, observed annually on March 22 since 1993, is a significant United Nations event that highlights the critical importance of fresh water. This day not only celebrates water but also raises awareness about the 2.2 billion individuals who lack access to safe water — more than a million in Canada alone! It serves as a call to action, urging us to address the global water crisis head-on.
Each year, UN-Water (the UN’s coordination mechanism on water and sanitation) formulates a theme for World Water Day – for 2026 it’s “Where water flows, equality grows”, exploring the critical relationship between water, women, and gender equality.
The global water crisis affects everyone – but not equally. Where people lack the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, inequalities flourish, with women and girls bearing the brunt. It’s time to centre women and girls in water solutions.
United Nations – World Water Day
Women must shape the future of water. Water services must withstand climate change and meet everyone’s needs. We need a transformative, rights-based approach to solving the water crisis, where women’s voices, leadership and agency are fully recognized.
Where water flows, equality grows. When women and girls have equal voice in water decisions, services become more inclusive, sustainable and effective. We must invest in women’s leadership to make water a force for a healthier, more prosperous, gender-equal future that will benefit us all.
This World Water Day, we’re asking: Water for equality – what does it mean to you?
When safe water and sanitation are available close to home, women and girls gain TIME, HEALTH, SAFETY, OPPORTUNITY, VOICE.
Across the world, women and girls bear the brunt of the global water crisis. It’s time to centrehem in water solutions – not only as users, but as leaders.
This includes engaging men and boys as allies in promoting safe water, sanitation and hygiene for all, and in challenging the norms and behaviours that hold women and girls back.
That’s why this year’s campaign is called ‘Where water flows, equality grows’.
Join the conversation. Share your views this #WorldWaterDay on what water for equality means to you. Learn more at WorldWaterDay.org Hashtag: #WorldWaterDay
At NWPA, we want to shine a spotlight on an invaluable resource right in our backyard: our aquifer, commonly referred to as groundwater. Groundwater accounts for approximately 30% of the world’s fresh water supply. In contrast, nearly 69% of the remaining fresh water is stored in ice caps and glaciers, leaving a mere 1% available in rivers and lakes. This highlights just how crucial groundwater is to our planet’s finite water resources.
The image below is an example of only one of the many actual mismanagements of the limited fresh aquifer water in our region. What you see before you are millions of litres of precious finite freshwater, a vital resource for thousands of residents, being irresponsibly extracted from the ground aquifer and wastefully discarded and discharged into an open drain, exposing it to adverse contamination! Why? This primarily serves the interests of industrial operations that underestimate the crucial importance of fresh water and its fundamental value to all life.
This is, by definition, legal, and this source is permitted (by the Province of Ontario) – to extract 25,458,000 litres of water per day! That’s the average amount of fresh water required for a population five times the size of Port Colborne!
Access to clean water is a Human Right and even in such a ‘progressive’ country as Canada, more than 1,000,000 people do not have access to clean drinking water every day. The community of Neskantaga First Nation (n northern Ontario – the province with the most fresh water in Canada) has been under a “boil water advisory” for more than 30 years! The UN is urging Canada to recognize the human right to water in its legal system, and the NWPA is collaborating with various individuals and organizations to achieve this goal.
Throughout the month of March and beyond, join us on a journey to protect our limited fresh water supply. Each one of our individual actions to protect our water makes a difference, and working together makes our protection stronger. Water is fundamental to all life, and it is crucial that we recognize its value and effectively manage our finite freshwater resources. Doing so will guarantee a sustainable future that nurtures and supports all living beings.
We would like to continue and deepen our connections with you, our incredible supporters, through our shared water advocacy work. Please feel free to use World Water Month as an excuse to share our collective work across your networks!
Read more about the UN declaration of water & sanitation as Human Rights.
