The Honourable Speaker of the National Assembly, Hon. Lanein Blanchette, headed the delegation of St. Kitts and Nevis to the Parliamentary Hearing at the United Nations hosted by the President of the 77th UN General Assembly and the Inter-Parliamentary Union. The two-day meeting is convened under the theme “Water for People and the Planet: Stop the Waste, Change the Game, Invest in the Future” and brings together Parliamentarians from around the world in a lively debate on the looming inter-continental water crisis in order to renew a sense of purpose and solidarity to address these challenges and create modalities for crisis management and transformation. Some of the topics that will be explored include:
- Sustainable Development Goal 6 as a linchpin of Sustainable Development;
- Access to safe water and sanitation as a human right;
- Climate Change and Water Scarcity: Building Resilience to avoid the worst;
- Financing infrastructure for sanitation and water services: The trillion-dollar challenge;
- Towards a more inclusive water policy: Leaving no one behind.
“The main aim of the meeting is to explore what parliamentarians can do to address the water challenges that we face in common as relates to ownership, management and financing,” said Ms. Blanchette. “Water scarcity is a challenge we face in St. Kitts and Nevis and I intend to use my platform to bring the issue of human rights to water and sanitation to the fore and help to spur better decision-making within our legislature for more inclusive and effective water delivery and management policies for the public good”.
The Parliamentary Hearing is a major event preparatory to the upcoming United Nations Water Conference that will be held at the United Nations Headquarters on 22nd -24th March 2023. “Given the critical importance of water to our Federation, I have been assured that St. Kitts and Nevis will be well represented at the upcoming Water Conference, which is the first of its kind to be held since the 1970s. Cooperation and partnerships between countries are essential to addressing our challenges and obstacles and to explore best practices and innovative solutions for accelerating progress in this key plank of our sustainable development agenda,” said H.E. Nerys Dockery, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Permanent Representative of St. Kitts and Nevis to the United Nations.
“The government of St. Kitts and Nevis through its parliamentary and diplomatic representatives intends to do its utmost to ensure that its multilateral engagements will lead to concrete results through concrete actions and plans on the ground. Nobody can prosper until we all prosper; nobody can lead a healthy life until the entire environment and the people around us are healthy too,” Ambassador Dockery concluded.