Make water a force for gender equality

This year’s World Water Day reminds us that safe water and sanitation play a critical role in supporting the rights and health of women and girls.

When access is lacking, it’s women and girls who pay the highest toll, relying on unsafe toilets; caring for family members made sick from contaminated water; and spending hours each day retrieving water from crowded communal sources — a chore that keeps many girls home from school.

But this year’s theme points to the solution: “Where water flows, equality grows.”

It’s time for governments to scale up investment and strengthen national water and sanitation systems, through improved delivery capacities, workforce training and reliable financing. Developed countries must share the technologies, expertise and financing required to build safe, sustainable and resilient water and sanitation infrastructure. And women must be at the decision-making table to ensure these systems meet their needs.

Too often, water is a source of conflict. But it can also unite people and be a contributor to peace. This year’s UN Water Conference will bring the world together to accelerate progress on water and sanitation for all.

Together, let’s make water a force for gender equality, and let the benefits flow to every community in the world.

Climate chaos is rewriting the rules of weather, with record heat, longer droughts, rising seas and ever more frequent and extreme disasters. Accurate, trusted science is our first line of defense.

The World Meteorological Organization and national services help keep us safe by weaving a global web of data, from land, sea, air and space — turning measurements into forecasts, and forecasts into early warnings. Yet the global observing system is under strain, with critical gaps, especially in least developed countries and small island developing States.

This year’s theme, Observing Today, Protecting Tomorrow, is a call to action. Governments, development banks and the private sector must scale up support for our global observing backbone, from surface stations to satellites, and ensure data is shared openly and equitably. And we must accelerate Early Warnings for All so that, by 2027, every person is protected by life-saving alerts. Investing in observation pays many times over — strengthening peace, security, resilience and sustainable development.

By observing today, we can protect tomorrow — for people, for planet, for prosperity, and for generations to come.

The ancient poison of racism is alive and kicking in every community, society, country and region of the world.

It lives on in the legacies of colonialism, enslavement and oppression, which drive so many of the problems we face today — from economic, social and political inequality, to discriminatory policies and practices, to outright conflicts. And it spreads via new digital tools and technologies that inundate us with hate speech, perpetuating lies and harmful stereotypes that often spill over into real-world violence and abuse.

The antidote is unity and action. All governments, institutions, businesses and communities must work together to address racism and safeguard the dignity, justice, equality and human rights that belong to every person.

This means universal ratification and full implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

And it means living up to the Durban Declaration and Program of Action, now marking its 25th year, which includes concrete steps to end racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.

Today, and every day, we must take a stand. We must fight for the dignity, rights and belonging of every person on earth, and erase the stain of racism from our world.

(Excerpts of United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ messages on World Water Day on 22 March 2026, World Meteorological Day on 23 March, and International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on 21 March.)