COVID-19: the role of the Water Convention and the Protocol on Water and Health

Guidance produced by WHO and information on ongoing activities:

• General WHO cooperate page on COVID-19
• Technical brief Water, sanitation, hygiene and waste management for COVID-19
• Interim recommendations on obligatory hand hygiene against transmission of COVID-19
• The Protocol on Water and Health and the COVID-19 pandemic: Relevance, lessons learned and future perspectives (English and Russian)

The provision of safe and sufficient water and adequate sanitation and hygiene is key to protecting human health during the infectious disease outbreaks, such as also COVID-19. Frequent handwashing according to appropriate hygiene standards require a continuous supply of safe water, and sanitation systems that are operational, including under challenging conditions, such as due to a changing climate.
UNECE-WHO Regional Office for Europe Protocol on Water and Health is a legally-binding agreement that brings together the environment and health dimensions and supports countries in setting, implementing and monitoring intersectoral national objectives in the areas of water, sanitation, hygiene (WASH) and health, strengthening national capacity for surveillance of drinking-water quality and management of water-related disease outbreaks in accordance with Article 8 of the Protocol, and promoting the provision of safe WASH services for all in all settings, including in schools, health care facilities and communities.
The well-established pan-European convening platform joining environment/water and health professionals and decision-makers as well as a range of tools and guidance developed under the Protocol could be used during the recovery phase and beyond to prepare for and prevent possible future spread of this and other infectious diseases, while ensuring that vulnerable groups of population (people living in informal settlements, homeless, prisoners, elderly, people with disabilities, migrants, refugees, low-income people, etc.) are not left behind.
Indeed, Parties to the Protocol have a legal obligation to provide access to safe water for “all members of the population, especially those who suffer a disadvantage or social exclusion”. A methodology for self-assessing current challenges that prevent governments from ensuring universal access and for developing action plans to address inequities is a concrete tool developed under the Protocol to progressively realize the human rights to water and sanitation and therefore improve the governance and policy framework needed to develop an inclusive and effective response to possible future epidemics.
The equitable access to water and sanitation related activities carried out under the Protocol can support governments to be prepared and respond to pandemics such as the COVID-19, by further taking into account those left behind in access to water and sanitation. More information is available here.
Activities under the Protocol are implemented in the following technical areas:

• Improving governance for water and health through target setting and periodic reporting;
• Prevention and reduction of water-related diseases;
• Institutional water, sanitation and hygiene;
• Small-scale water supplies and sanitation;
• Safe and efficient management of water supply and sanitation systems;
• Equitable access to water and sanitation;
• Increasing resilience to climate change.

• The Equitable Access Score-card: Supporting policy processes to achieve the human right to water and sanitation 
• The Human Rights to Water and Sanitation in Practice: Findings and lessons learned from the work on equitable access to water and sanitation under the Protocol on Water and Health in the pan-European region 
• Guidance Note on the Development of Action Plans to Ensure Equitable Access to Water and Sanitation
• No one left behind: Good practices to ensure equitable access to water and sanitation in the pan-European region 
• Protocol on Water and Health and the 2030 Agenda: A Practical Guide for Joint Implementation

The timely and sufficient availability of water of adequate quality is a prerequisite for the provision of safe water, sanitation and adequate hygiene and for tackling possible impacts of the COVID-19 crisis, including poverty, economic downturn, food and energy insecurity and political instability. Sixty per cent of global freshwater flow comes from transboundary basins. The Water Convention provides a unique global legal and intergovernmental global framework for peaceful and cooperative management of transboundary water resources and allows to prevent potential tensions between countries and to prevent transboundary impacts such as pollution. For example, it includes provisions for early warning across borders, joint monitoring and assessment, mutual assistance etc. The following activities and tools under the Water Convention support recovery and prevention:

• Measures that countries need to take in order to tackle the COVID-19 crisis and for the subsequent recovery may increase pressures on transboundary water resources. Also, the crisis may lead to local or transboundary tensions, migration and decreased interest in and financing for cross-border activities. The Water Convention supports countries to develop or strengthen transboundary water agreements and joint institutions as key instruments to discuss transboundary water management, including water quantity, water quality and health aspects. Transboundary cooperation, in particular river basin organizations can play an important role in coordinating and supporting actions by riparian countries for COVID-19 recovery and prevention of future crisis; some of them already have health and mutual assistance in their mandate and already support countries in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.Two activities in 2020–2021 support this area of work: the elaboration of a practical guide on the development of agreements or other agreements for transboundary water cooperation and the development of a handbook on water allocation in transboundary context.The virtual workshop on designing legal frameworks for transboundary water cooperation (28-29 July 2020) included a special thematic session on addressing health issues in transboundary water cooperation, particularly in light of the current outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Climate change may aggravate the consequences of the COVID-19 crises, increase water scarcity and make adaptation in transboundary basins even more vital. The Water Convention helps transboundary basins to adapt to climate change through capacity building activities organized at the global level and support provided to specific basins in development and implementation of transboundary adaptation strategies and plans. These activities also promote better resilience of countries, basins and people to prevent future emergencies, as they address the projected variety in water resources quantity and quality and increase linkages between transboundary water cooperation, climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. A Global workshop on building climate resilience through improving water management and sanitation at national and transboundary levels on 29-31 March 2021 brought together environment/water and health communities as well as disaster risk and climate change experts to jointly develop best practices in building climate resilience and reducing disaster risk through improving water resource management and sanitation on the national and transboundary levels.

• New challenges for information exchange and monitoring of transboundary rivers arise due COVID-19, since timely availability of water of adequate quantity and quality becomes even more important, requiring up-to-the-standards monitoring. Performant monitoring and effective information exchange helps to address emerging health concerns linked to water quality. The activities on data and information exchange and several guidance documents on monitoring and assessment developed under the Water Convention help to improve harmonized monitoring of waters (measuring, sampling, etc.) to ensure adequate and consistent information to inform decision-making in transboundary basins.

• Financing access to water and sanitation and transboundary water cooperation are increasingly important to prevent future crisis. At the same time, the crisis is likely to impact on the availability of financial resources to support transboundary water cooperation processes. In 2020, the Water Convention prepared a Background Study on Funding and Financing of Transboundary Water Cooperation and Basin Development and organized Virtual workshop on financing transboundary water cooperation and basin development on this topic on 16-17 December 2020. A new publication Financing and funding of transboundary water cooperation and basin development is under development to assist governments and joint bodies in securing resources for transboundary water cooperation.

• In countries of Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia, the EU Water Initiative National Policy Dialogues on Integrated Water Resources Management and on Water Supply and Sanitation, implemented under the programmes of work of the Water Convention and the Protocol on Water and Health, provide platforms for regular dialogue on water management, water and sanitation issues, hygiene and water-related diseases. In 2020–2021, the National Policy Dialogue steering committees, bringing together national water, health, environment, finance and other ministries, discuss measures needed in the water sector and beyond for COVID-19 recovery, as well as prevention of and preparedness to similar outbreaks in the future.

• Guide to Implementing the Water Convention
• Words into Action Guidelines Implementation Guide for Addressing Water-Related Disasters and Transboundary Cooperation
• Financing Climate Change Adaptation in Transboundary Basins
• Water and Climate Change Adaptation in Transboundary Basins: Lessons Learned and Good Practices
• Guidance on Water and Adaptation to Climate Change
• Transboundary Flood Risk Management: Experiences from the UNECE region
• Strategies for monitoring and assessment of transboundary rivers, lakes and groundwaters
• Guidelines on Monitoring and Assessment of Transboundary Rivers
• Guidelines on Monitoring and Assessment of Transboundary and International Lakes
• Guidelines on Monitoring and Assessment of Transboundary Groundwaters  

Learn more about how the Water Convention and the Protocol on Water and Health help countries in tackling possible impacts of the COVID-19 crisis by listening to the webinars organised in cooperation with Geneva Environment Network  as part of its special COVID-19 series:

• The Water Convention and Transboundary Water Cooperation, 26 May 2020
• Protocol on Water and Health, 23 June 2020

Look at measures 14, 15 and 16 in Measures to Green the Post-Pandemic Recovery (IBC, 2021) to learn what steps can be taken in the areas of equitable access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene, water-use efficiency across sectors and transboundary water cooperation as part of national recovery strategies.