Global water security: A shining star in the dark sky of achieving the sustainable development goals

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has already triggered global health, economic, and social crises, clouding the sky of achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the United Nations (UN) in 2015 to improve human lives while protecting nature. Water, vital for all forms of life, is essential to public health and human well-being and smooth the path of ending poverty through food and energy security. Hence, we argued that global water security can serve as a shining star to guide policymakers through the overwhelming task of achieving the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, currently hindered by the coronavirus outbreak. To quickly attain global water security while taking the accelerators of Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6 “Clean Water and Sanitation”) into account, this study proposed different water-related interventions. To successfully implement the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development after the coronavirus pandemic, we call for immediate and sustainable interventions to act rapidly towards achieving water security and SDG6 worldwide and support the constant battle against the ongoing fight with COVID-19 and prepare for possible future pandemics.