In 2020, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister presented the country’s SDG report to the United Nations. And, through a Presidential decree, the term, ‘sustainable management of water’ became official. GWP Ukraine’s role in this achievement began with an understanding of the inseparability of soil and water.
Mention of Ukraine evokes images of golden wheat fields stretching to the horizon, a product of rich soils and plentiful rain. In recent years, however, soil degradation and recurring drought, combined with a legacy of viewing water only as a resource to be tapped, has threatened the country’s agricultural production, and the health of its economy.
Sustainable development of water
Ukraine moved to address degradation of its formerly productive soils in 2016 by approving a draft national action plan to combat desertification and land degradation. While the plan addressed the issue of drought, it did not fully recognize the cyclical nature of water and the need to carefully manage that cycle in the face of climate change.
“Until recently we have still been living with the old terminology when we discuss water: ‘rational use’, instead of ‘sustainable management’. We knew that until we changed that ingrained way of thinking that the language imposes on us, we could not make good progress”, explained Andriy Demydenko of GWP Ukraine.
GWP Ukraine has been working since 2005 towards a more inclusive view of the role of water in the country’s development. An opportunity to move towards this change came when, in 2019, the country’s president returned from a United Nations meeting in New York, asking the question, “What are we doing about the Sustainable Development Goals?”
Low IWRM implementation score
GWP’s local partners mobilised to ensure that information to support reporting about SDG 6 was available. Results of a joint baseline study in 2017 had indicated a low score in implementation of integrated water resources management in the country. In response, GWP Ukraine launched a national policy dialogue, “Rethinking Water Security for Ukraine”, to support water governance reform. This included a national dialogue session to develop recommendations for adoption of SDGs 6 and 13, with young people especially included in the work.
The recommendations developed met an obstacle when a government reorganization suspended work in the country’s Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources but found another path through the Voluntary National Review of SDGs organised by the Ministry of Economy. Sustainable management of water has found its place in Ukraine.