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Note: Amongst other findings, the research shows 58 per cent of people are seriously concerned about fresh water shortages and 30 percent say they have been greatly impacted by a lack of fresh water. This new survey of almost 30,000 people from 31 countries was conducted by sustainability consultancy, GlobeScan, and is being released together with Circle of Blue and WWF.

A press release is below with full details including more data broken down by country as well as globally and quotes from J. Carl Ganter, (Managing Director, Circle of Blue), Alexis Morgan, (WWF Global Water Stewardship Lead) and Perrine Bouhan (Director at GlobeScan.) Interviews, images and footage are available as well as additional data broken down by country on request.

This announcement also coincides with GlobeScan’s latest webinar “The Future of Water: Insights to Help You Stay Ahead of What’s Next”. Further information and registration details are available here: 

Andrew Marcus on behalf of GlobeScan

PRESS RELEASE

WORRIES ABOUT WATER SHORTAGES ON THE RISE, SAYS NEW GLOBAL SURVEY

Fifty-eight percent of people are seriously concerned about fresh water shortages, according to research published ahead of the UN Water Conference

With the world gathering in New York next week for the first UN Water Conference in 46 years, new research from GlobeScan highlights the global impact of worsening water shortages which are disrupting societies, economies, the environment, and every aspect of life as we know it.

Fifty-eight percent of people across the world are very concerned about fresh water shortages, while 30 percent say they have personally been “greatly” impacted by a lack of fresh water. 

Additionally, climate change is strongly connected to water shortages, with nearly four in ten people who have been personally affected by climate change saying they experienced it through drought. 

Together with Circle of Blue and WWF, GlobeScan is releasing these key water findings from its GlobeScan Radar Survey ahead of the UN Water Conference from March 22nd to 24th where governments and companies must commit to urgent action to tackle the world’s water crises.  

Key research findings include:

• Fifty-eight percent of people globally believe that fresh water shortages is a “very serious” issue. Mexicans, Colombians, and Brazilians report the most concern about access to water, while people in China, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea are the least likely to say fresh water shortages is a “very serious” issue.
• Strong concern about fresh water shortages has increased over the past few years, from a low of 49 percent in 2014 to 61 percent in 2022 among 17 countries consistently tracked, along with concern about climate change (45% in 2014 to 65% in 2022).
• People in Argentina, South Korea, Vietnam, Colombia, Germany, and Peru report the largest increases in concern about water shortages over the past year.
• 30 percent of people globally claim they are “greatly” personally affected by fresh water shortages, while a global majority feel at least moderately personally affected (56%). Only one-quarter (25%) say they are not affected at all.
• Majorities of people surveyed in Colombia, Italy, Mexico, Peru, and Turkey say they are greatly personally affected by a lack of fresh water. In contrast, fewer than one in ten say they are greatly affected in Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands.
• Globally, people in urban areas (32%) are more likely than those in rural (28%) or towns and suburban areas (26%) to feel greatly affected by a lack of fresh water.
• As many as 38 percent of people say they have been “greatly” personally affected by climate change, while as many as 75 percent have been at least “moderately” affected.  
• People who say they have been personally affected by climate change often mention drought as one of the ways they have been impacted; 37 percent of those experiencing climate change personally claim this is through experiencing drought.

“We are seeing a rare convergence, when public opinion is aligning with profound realities as the world faces compounding water challenges that are affecting how we grow our food, generate our power, and support a sustainable economy and environment,” said J. Carl Ganter, Managing Director at Circle of Blue. 

“This survey of some 30,000 people definitively shows that citizens around the world are feeling and talking about the effects of water and climate stress. On the eve of the UN Water Conference, this is a crucial barometer that reveals increasing public demand for action from political and corporate leaders,” Ganter said.

Alexis Morgan, WWF Global Water Stewardship Lead comments: “Water doesn’t come from a tap – it comes from nature. But with nature loss and climate instability increasing, water scarcity will only worsen, impacting societies and economies across the globe. Yet through collaboration, restoring wetlands, re-connecting rivers, and replenishing aquifers, we have proven ways to tackle these shared water challenges. It’s time to urgently invest in these solutions.”

Perrine Bouhana, Director at GlobeScan comments: “It comes as no surprise that people are becoming more and more worried about the availability of fresh water. Last year droughts affected the lives of countless numbers of people on every continent. Indicators suggest this is likely to get worse. High levels of public concern about water means there is an opportunity right now for governments and NGOs to help people and businesses understand how their actions can genuinely make a difference to this globally important problem that affects all of us.”

ENDS

Notes to editors:

Methodology Summary – The GlobeScan Radar survey is a global survey conducted online among samples of 1,000 adults in each of 31 countries and territories (1,500 in USA, 500 each in Hong Kong, Kenya, Nigeria, and Singapore, and 850 in Egypt), weighted to reflect general population census data. The research was conducted during June and July of 2022 with a total of 29,293 participants.  Participating markets include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, Peru, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, the UK, the USA, and Vietnam.

For more information contact:  Stacy Rowland Tel: +1 416 992 2705, stacy.rowland@globescan.com 

Laura Herd, Tel: +1 231 941 1355, laura@circleofblue.org 

Richard Lee, Tel: +31 6 54 287 956, rlee@wwfint.org 

About GlobeScan – GlobeScan is a global insights and advisory consultancy working at the intersection of brand purpose, sustainability, and trust. We partner with leading companies, NGOs, and governmental organizations to deliver insights that guide decision-making and build strategies that contribute to a sustainable and equitable future.

We combine over 35 years of data-driven insights with a global network of experts and the ability to engage any stakeholder or consumer. Our unique research programs and global capabilities help to know what’s new, what’s next, and what’s needed. And our advisory services help turn that knowledge into smart, strategic decisions.

Established in 1987, we have offices in Cape Town, Hong Kong, London, Mumbai, Paris, San Francisco, São Paulo, and Toronto. As a proudly independent, employee-owned company, we’re invested in the long-term success of our clients and society. GlobeScan is a Certified B Corp and a participant of the United Nations Global Compact.

Learn more: www.globescan.com 

About Circle of Blue – Circle of Blue is the nonprofit newsroom that reports globally about the intersection of water, food, and energy in the changing climate. It received the Rockefeller Foundation Centennial Innovation Award for creating a new model of impact journalism and convening.

Learn more: https://www.circleofblue.org/  

About WWF – WWF is an independent conservation organization, with over 30 million supporters and a global network active in over 100 countries. WWF’s mission is to stop the degradation of the Earth’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature, by conserving the world’s biological diversity, ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable, and promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption. Visit www.panda.org/news for the latest news and media resources and follow us on Twitter @WWF_media.

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New York, March 13 – Technology is a double-edged sword and more solutions are needed to address violence and harassment against women in the digital age, the United Nations heard in a conversation led by the President of the General Assembly on harnessing technology’s potential to end gender-based violence.

The event – organized on International Women’s Day March 8 – heard from women from around the world who described being targets of online harassment and abuse. Business leaders and advocates also described digital innovations to keep women and girls safe, and local leaders who highlighted support for survivors of gender-based violence.

The event took place during the annual meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women at UN headquarters in New York from March 6 to 17.

“Violence is a crime, online and offline. And violence against women is a global epidemic,” Csaba Kőrösi, the President of the General Assembly, said.

“Transformation will happen anyway, but we have an opportunity to guide it, to make it sustainable and just, within societies, within groups and with gender equality at its center.”

The discussion on “the role of technology in addressing violence against women and girls” was held on the sidelines of the Commission on the Status of Women, the key intergovernmental body dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women, whose priority theme this year is on innovation and technology.

UN Women Executive Director Sima Sami Bahous noted that technology and innovation could close the gaps in reaching full equality for women much faster than the 286 years expected.

But she added that artificial intelligence that is driving much of today’s innovation is developed by men, “and women find themselves in the middle with no skills to design them, to develop them”.

“Even when they go into STEM, most of them will fail, not because of their aptitude, but because they have been conditioned to think this is not their space,” Ms. Bahous told the audience.

Participants also heard personal stories from senior officials in the Pacific and the Middle East of targeted social media campaigns harassing them for having high-level positions in Government.

According to a study released by UN Women and the Interparliamentary Union (IPU), only around 11.3 per cent of countries have women Heads of State and 9.8 per cent have women Heads of Government.

While the number of parliamentarians is higher than ever before, there are wide global disparities with European Nordic countries on one side of the scale and rankings in the Middle East and North Africa region at the other.

“If I had been in my country during that time, I would have been afraid of stepping outside my house,” one woman Ambassador said, noting that she had been targeted at least three times in such a campaign.

Another senior official said it took her months to recover from cyberbullying, during a time when some people committed suicide.

One of the main topics of discussion was domestic violence and support for survivors.

According to figures cited during the conversation, one woman is killed by a family member every 11 minutes, and one in three will experience violence in her lifetime.

Violence against women is often linked to stalking, according to Commissioner Cecile Noelfrom the Mayor’s Office to End Domestic Violence and Gender-Based Violence (ENDGBV), who also participated in the conversation at the UN.

Commissioner Noel shared that her Office, in partnership with Cornell University and New York University’s Clinic to End Tech Abuse (CETA), launched an app that can tell when malware has been installed on the woman’s or her children’s phone, to limit stalking.

This innovation is being offered at New York City’s Family Justice Centers, established to support survivors and their children in New York’s five boroughs. President Kőrösi visited the Manhattan Center in late 2022, describing it as a place that made his “soul fly” to see the work done.

The conversation included Ministers and other senior Government officials who highlighted national support to survivors, including through toll free numbers.

“We cannot let women to fight alone, we cannot leave the victims to fight alone,” said Jeannette Bayisenge, Minister on Gender and Family Promotion in Rwanda.

Participating in the conversation were several representatives from the business sector. 

Among them Patricia Georgiou, Director of Policy, Partnerships and Business Development at Google’s Jigsaw, who spoke about the harassment experienced by women journalists and activists.

“For every voice we hear, there are countless others who have been erased, ultimately driving women off the internet. This leaves us all poorer economically, politically and culturally,” Ms. Georgiou noted.

She discussed the work that Google is doing to update its policies and algorithms to exclude revenge pornography, hate speech and violence – as well as the decision to publicly share its algorithms, and partnership with academia to fight misogyny. She also highlighted that half of their engineers were women.

Also on the technology side was Sara Wahedi who following a suicide explosion near her home in Kabul, created Ehtesab, a digital app that provides real-time emergency information to residents in Afghanistan.

She shared a message from Sahar, a female engineer who is still in Afghanistan where the Taliban has forbidden millions of female students from attending secondary schools and universities, or working outside of the home.

“She has no space to breath. She has the fundamental right, as I do, to pursue her education. So please do remember Sahab today,” Ms. Wahedi said, sharing the message with the room.

President Kőrösi asked Sara to relay a message back to Sahar: “We are with you.”

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Doha/New York, March 9 – The U.N. conference on the Least Developed Countries ended with member states committing to measures to deliver on the Doha Program of Action, a 10-year plan to put the world’s 46 most vulnerable countries back on track to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Bold commitments at the conference marked a transformative turning point for the world’s poorest countries, whose development has been hindered by crises including COVID-19, climate change and deepening inequalities, the U.N said in a press release.

“Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in the Least Developed Countries is a litmus test for achieving the 2030 Agenda writ large, including by ensuring that no one — and no LDC — is left behind” said UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed. “That is why the Doha Program of Action must be seen as a vehicle for SDG Acceleration.”

Under the theme ‘From Potential to Prosperity’ the conference aimed to drive transformational change to positively affect the 1.2 billion people who live in the LDCs.

“The commitments made this week are a true embodiment of global solidarity and partnership and will pave the way for a new era of international cooperation,” said Rabab Fatima, Secretary General of the Conference and UN High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States.

“This will result in more of the Least Developed Countries achieving the goal of graduation and a more prosperous and sustainable future,” she said.

5,000 participants attended LDC5, including 47 Heads of State or Government and 130 Ministers and Vice-Ministers. They called for developed countries to urgently provide the most vulnerable countries with the assistance they need to drive socio-economic and environmental development. Corporate leaders together with civil society, youth and other partners shared plans, innovations, and recommendations in several areas: from enhancing the participation of LDCs in international trade and regional integration to addressing climate change, strengthening global partnerships, supporting graduation, and leveraging the power of science, technology, and innovation.

The Doha Political Declaration, adopted March 9, reinforces the international community’s commitment to the Doha Program of Action.

Commitments

The Conference has presented a unique opportunity to translate the vision of the Doha Program into tangible results with countries and stakeholders showcasing a host of commitments. These commitments range from improving biodiversity and tackling malnutrition to resilience building in the LDCs.

Qatar announced a financial package of $60 million: $10m to support the implementation of the Doha Program of Action and $50 million to help build resilience in the LDCs.  

Germany dedicated €200 million in new money in 2023 for financing for least developed countries.

Canada announced $59 million to deliver Vitamin supplements in 15 LDCs and ecosystem conservation in Burkina Faso.  

The EU Commission announced cooperation agreements advancing sustainable investments in Africa totaling more than €130 million of investment.

Finland announced an annual event called the United Nations LDC Future Forum in Helsinki, with the Office of the UN High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States – OHRLLS –, to ensure the latest thinking and research is being put to work to ensure progress on the most vulnerable states.

The Green Climate Fund announced a new project to give $80 million in equity to offer green guarantees to business in LDCs and bring down the cost of capital.

The United Nations World Tourism Organization, announced a new €10 million Tourism for Development Fund for LDCs, supported by TUI Care Foundation, that will invest by 2030 to support sustainable tourism in LDCs as a key driver of development.

The government of Kazakhstan pledged $50,000 to continue their work supporting the most vulnerable member states of the United Nations.

The government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced a major new loan package for the Least Developed Countries.

The following 46 countries are listed as LDCs as of March 2023:

Africa (33): Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia.

Asia (9): Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Nepal, Timor-Leste and Yemen

Caribbean (1): Haiti.

Pacific (3): Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.

The U.N. said 46 countries are deemed as least developed as they showed the lowest indicators of socio-economic development across a range of indexes. The LDCs are home to about 1.1 billion people, or 14 per cent of the world population and over 75 per cent of them still live in poverty.

According to data from the World Bank, all LDCs have a gross national per capita income (GNI) of below USD$1,018; compare that to almost $71,000 in the United States, $44,000 in France, $9,900 in Turkey and $6,530 in South Africa.

Key LDC5 links

LDC5 Website: https://www.un.org/ldc5/

Doha Programme of Action: https://www.un.org/ldc5/doha-programme-of-action

Doha Political Declaration: https://undocs.org/A/CONF.219/2023/L.1

Media Corner: https://www.un.org/ldc5/news

For more information, contact:

Conor O’Loughlin | LDC5 Spokesperson | conor.oloughlin@un.org

Sharon Birch | UN Department of Global Communications | birchs@un.org

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Riyadh/New York, February 20 – Wars, climate disasters and economic collapse are causing the largest food crisis in modern history, spreading famine that is affecting millions of people around the world, the chief U.N. humanitarian affairs and emergency coordinator said in an appeal to help those in needs.

“The world is facing the largest food crisis in modern history, and famine is knocking on many doors,” Martin Griffiths told a humanitarian forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on behalf of U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

The forum was held under the theme “The Evolving Humanitarian landscape for 2023 and beyond” and attended by heads of state and government and donors to the U.N. emergency fund known as CERF.

“Our mandate and mantra is ‘We don’t give up.’ But to discharge this mandate, we need your help in practical and tangible ways,” Griffiths said.

Griffths described the current humanitarian landscape as “rough and rugged one” where needs are spiralling across the world and humanitarian crises are piling on top of each other, and “desperate people are looking to us in their hour of need.” He said women’s human rights specially are under “vicious attacks” in many places and injustice has festered for decades.

Griffiths said more than 350 million people around the world currently need humanitarian assistance and close to US$ 54 billion are needed to meet the basic needs of the worst affected among them.

“But experience shows that we can expect to raise barely half of that amount. Each year, our count of people in need, and dollars to raise, takes another jump. The trend is clear, and there are three main reasons for this,” he said.

He said more than 222 million people globally “don’t know when or even if they’ll eat another meal” and 45 million people are already on the brink of starvation with most of them women and children.

 The economic collapse fuelled first by the shock of Covid-19 pandemic, the year-old war in Ukraine and the recent earthquake in Turkeye and Syria are pushing millions of people to the brink, the U.N said. The U.N. has allocated up to $50 million to assist earthquake victims and $250 million from CERF to meet urgent humanitarian needs in score of countries.

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