Water is crucial for sustainable development in preservation of our natural environment and the alleviation of poverty.
Water is indispensable for human health and well being.
A major effort is required to fulfill commitments and extend access to water to those who remain unserved, the majority being those in arid and semi arid areas.
Among the themes that are central in water are scarcity, access to sanitation, health and trans-boundary water issues, food and agriculture.
We plan our cities and towns near water resources. We battle in water. We play in Water and we work with water.
Our economies are build on the strength of water infrastructures and transportation.
The products we buy and sell are all partly water in one way or another.
Our daily lives are built in water and shaped by it. Without water that surrounds us, the humility of the air, the roughness of the river current, the flow of water from our kitchens taps, that means our lives would be impossible.
Water has fallen in our esteem. No longer an element to be revered and protected but a consumer product that we shamefully neglected.
Eight percent of our bodies are formed by water and two thirds of the planet’s surface is covered by water.
Water is our culture and our life.
Water plays a central role in many religions and beliefs around the world as a source of life as it represents births.
Water cleans the body by extension purifies it and these two main qualities confer highly symbolic.
Water is therefore a key element in ceremonies and religious rites.
Water is often perceived as a god, goddess or a divine agency in religions.
Rivers, rains, ponds, lakes, glaciers,hailstorms and snow are some of the forms of water that we may take when interpreted and incorporated in cultural and religious.
Therefore Water is life, a living and spiritual matter working as a mediator between humans and the gods. It often represents the border between the world and the other.