By Muhammad Amaan
United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, arrived in Senegal on Tuesday, the first stop on a mission to West African countries.
Amina Mohammed is in West African countries to take stock of challenges in delivering the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and work with the stakeholders to find pathways towards acceleration.
Her visit followed the SDG Summit held at the UN Headquarters September 2023, to ramp up progress towards achieving the 17 goals before the 2030 deadline.
She held meetings in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, with President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, and the Ministers for Finance, the Economy and Foreign Affairs.”
“During those meetings, the Deputy secretary-general reaffirmed our support to the Government toward key transitions to achieve the SDGs, including food systems transition, renewable energy, and the digital economy,” UN spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric told journalists in New York.
The deputy secretary general is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko on Wednesday, and with the UN country team and civil society representatives, including women and youth groups.
She will then depart Senegal for Conakry, Guinea, to continue her tour of the region, which will also take her to Mali.
Following the visit, Mohammed will head to Ethiopia to preside over the opening of the First session of the Preparatory Committee for the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development.
In a related development, Côte d’Ivoire has become the latest country to sign on to a UN Treaty to improve joint water management across borders, the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) said on Tuesday.
The West African nation is the 53rd Party, and the 10th in Africa, to join the UN Water Convention, officially the 1992 Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes.
The move further consolidates the strong momentum for water cooperation in Africa, where over 90 per cent of water resources are in 63 basins shared by two or more countries, according to the UNECE, which services the Convention.
“Côte d’Ivoire’s accession is a milestone for multilateralism and reaffirms the role of the UN Water Convention as a tool to support water cooperation for peace, sustainable development and climate change adaptation across borders,” said Tatiana Molcean, the UNECE Executive Secretary.
Côte d’Ivoire has a population of some 30 million and shares eight transboundary river basins with neighbouring countries, including Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Meeting the water needs of the country’s population, which is growing by 2.5 per cent annually, brings significant challenges in the face of threats such as urbanisation, and climate change impacts – including drought and flooding.
At the same time, water quality is deteriorating due to pollution from agricultural, industrial waste, illegal gold panning and untreated wastewater.
Water resources are also unevenly distributed across the country, with the north and north-east particularly affected.
“In the context of increasing water scarcity and high demand for water in Africa, Côte d’Ivoire’s accession as the 10th African Party to the 1992 Water Convention is a significant step for the continent,” said Claver Gatete, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).
Parties to the convention will next meet in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in October.
