Water Europe has launched its new publication 'Water in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: How can Europe Act'. The publication has been jointly designed and developed with the UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP) and its objective is to advocate for the role that the European Union, the European Commission and the European Water Sector actors had and should continue to have, to contribute to achieving the 2030 Agenda, in particular to SDG 6 and other water-related targets.

The SDGs are a global commitment by all Member States of the United Nations on 17 interlinked universal goals to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. According to the World Economic Forum, water presents some of the world’s most pressing social, political, environmental and economic challenges.

What are the key findings of the publication?

• The importance of water is still not widely understood, despite its relevance for sustainable development.
• To achieve the SDGs, societies need to recognize and realize the Value of Water and build Water-Smart Societies. To do this, we need technological but also non-technological innovations, including the involvement of all relevant stakeholders in the governance of our water systems.
• Sustainable business practices and business innovations are essential to achieve and ensure sustainable water resources management.
• Monitoring, transparency, inclusiveness and accountability can serve as important drivers to track and inspire action towards achieving Water-Smart Societies that are critical for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

In 2015, UN member states adoptedthe 2030 Agenda for SustainableDevelopment and itsSustainable Development Goalsand implementation principles,which represent the vision forthe world that we should strive tobecome by 2030. These 17 goalswith 169 targets cover a wide arrayof sectoral policies. Local andregional governments played animportant role in influencing thedefinition of the SDGs, successfullycampaigning for a stand-alonegoal on Sustainable Cities and HumanSettlements (SDG 11), and forinternational recognition of thepivotal role of local and regionalgovernment in sustainable development.As the Sustainable DevelopmentGoals of the 2030 Agenda must beachieved at global, national andsubnational levels, the success ofthis ambitious agenda is dependenton the active involvementof every level of government andof a large variety of stakeholders.Multi-level approaches and multi-stakeholder-partnerships thereforewill be the key factors formaking our common world visionattainable by 2030. The global developmentagenda cannot be confinedto the competence of centralgovernment alone. The frameworkof the Sustainable DevelopmentGoals with its universal definitionof goals and targets has tobe adapted to concrete situationsand specific needs to create actualbenefits for concrete people andtheir living conditions.This process of taking into accountsubnational contexts in theachievement of the 2030 Agenda,is what we understand by “Localizingthe SDGs”. Localization relatesboth to how the SDGs can providea framework for local develop-Foreword5ment policy and to how local andregional governments can supportthe achievement of the SDGsthrough action from the bottomup. We at the Regional Project “SocialRights for Vulnerable Groups”are committed to work with ourpartner municipalities in supportingthem so that the most vulnerablepeople’s living conditionscan be improved. We are convincedthat our partner municipalitiesare the administrative level closestto the local communities and canmake a meaningful difference intheir lives, in a timely manner andflexibly reacting to emerging andfast changing needs.In this respect the capacities ofmunicipal structures to implementthe 2030 Agenda and monitorthe achievement of SDGs onlocal level and the involvementof public, private and civil societyactors are crucial. This Handbookhas been designed to serve exactlythis purpose. To help practitionersat municipal level in improvingtheir knowledge and strengtheningtheir understanding of the relevanceof the 2030 agenda and theSDGs at local level, to raise theircapacities to become promoters ofthe SDGs and to be able to sensitizeother stakeholders.