Over the past two years, nearly every region of the world was inundated with floods, leading to loss of many lives, billions of dollars in damages and impacts on ecosystems. For example, in 2024 in West and Central Africa 7.2 million people were affected by flooding whereas in Central Europe the number of directly affected people was almost 2 million. In many cases, these floods have a transboundary character since shared basins account for 60% of the world's freshwater flows. Cooperation on shared waters thus can help to improve resilience to flood events, for example, through the development of shared information and early warning systems or data exchange across sectors, enlarging the range and location of available measures, and sharing costs and benefits.
During floods, there is an increased risk that the water becomes polluted with chemical and biological contaminants presenting a risk to human health and physical and mental well-being. The effects of flooding on health are diverse and significant, ranging from mortality and injuries resulting from trauma and drowning, to infectious diseases and mental health problems (acute and long term). Floods can also damage water and sanitation infrastructures which may lead to additional contamination. Populations that are particularly vulnerable to adverse effects of flooding include the elderly, children, people with chronic illnesses or physical impairments and pregnant women.
The workshop will bring together water, climate, environment, disaster and health communities to jointly discuss the latest insights, best practices and lessons learned in flood risk management on the transboundary and national levels and draw lessons from the discussions. The workshop will also improve the understating of the interlinkages and the benefits in applying provisions of the Water Convention and the Protocol on Water and Health to build flood resilience under climate change.
The global workshop is organized under the auspices of the Water Convention serviced by UNECE, under the leadership of the Netherlands, and the Protocol on Water and Health, serviced by UNECE and the WHO/Europe under the leadership of Italy and the Netherlands as lead Parties of the programme area 7 on increasing resilience to climate change, and in partnership with Uganda (tbc), the International Network of Basin Organisations (INBO), the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR, tbc) and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
Working languages of the workshop will be Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish. A detailed programme of the workshop will be issued in early March 2025.
The workshop will be followed by the fifteenth meeting of the Task Force on Water and Climate under the Water Convention on 21 March 2025.
Registration & Practical information:
To attend the meeting please register using the following link by 12 March 2025: https://indico.un.org/event/1011629/
Please kindly find some links towards instructions on:
1) How to create an indico account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeZuft5xQ4U
2) How to register for an event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaEj3hShn6U
For assistance with registration, contact the secretariat by e-mail: [email protected]