Key messages


Butterfly Effect NGO coalition:Our messages for the 6th World Water Forum


The Butterfly Effect is a coalition of international NGOs, which advocates effective local solutions that have a sustainable impact on water and sanitation. We have consulted with NGOs for over a year, bringing our experience and expertise together with a common set of messages for government delegates at the 6th World Water Forum, March 2012.

Made up of over 90 civil society organisations, NGOs, networks and womens’ organisations, we are an open movement that’s growing fast. Our solutions are based on human rights principles, communities’ experience, and relate to policies, projects, information campaigns and empowering stakeholders. Crucially, these solutions are local, sustainable, adaptable, innovative, equitable, accountable and people-orientated.

We have identified several key water management issues that need addressing if the number of people with access to safe water and adequate sanitation and hygiene services is to increase. As such, we are committed to working on these issues by using evidence-based models and innovation, integrating both traditional knowledge and demonstration of best practices.

In order to effectively address these issues, we urge governments and (where appropriate) other stakeholders to:
  • ·       Commit to implementing this human right quickly, by all appropriate means. Accelerating the process will help overcome the water crisis at all levels. Develop human rights based national roadmaps (national action plans) for the implementation of the human rights to water and sanitation by 2015
  • ·       Integrate specifically the equity, participation and accountability dimensions of a human rights-based approach in water governance
  • ·       Commit to dependable finance, which have been earmarked for water and sanitation services for the poor (namely where fiscal and grant financing takes precedence over loan financing)
  • ·       Increase access to water and sustainable sanitation services to fulfill the human right criteria (quantity, quality, affordability, accessibility, and acceptability) and MDG goals
  • ·       Engage with civil society and community organisations to create a needs-based capacity building program that empowers organisations and stakeholders to fulfill their roles in water management
  • ·       Ratify and domesticate the UN Watercourses Convention, thus promoting basic rules for cooperation and sustainable and equitable use of international watercourses shared between States
  • ·       Empower local communities and relevant institutions at the lowest relevant level to plan and manage water and related natural resources through scaling-up and enhancing valuable community-based mitigation and adaptation strategies and programme
  • ·       Recognise the value of local knowledge and ensure local voices are taken into account in policies and their implementation at all levels
  • ·       Support the appropriation and application of the Hyōgo framework for action by all States facing chronic crisis

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