New UNU-INWEH report: Deep Words, Shallow Words: An Initial Analysis of Water Discourse in Four Decades of UN Declarations

Deep Words, Shallow Words: An Initial Analysis of Water Discourse in Four Decades of UN Declarations 

Recently released and getting some excellent and supportive feedback, the report examines the changing language of water in high-level declarations from eleven UN conferences on water and the environment over the past forty years and constitutes a contribution by the Institute to the Rio+20 process (see The future we want). Multiple themes are addressed and a  four page ‘Summary for Decision Makers’ distills lessons learned. 

We hope the study will facilitate the efforts of Ministers and Policy Makers to both build on and avoid unnecessary overlap with work done at previous meetings. The findings of the report should assist drafters of future UN Declarations in ensuring their outputs are effective, robust and reflect mindful and cumulative deepening of work undertaken at previous high-level meetings.

More information and a link to the report itself can be found at: INWEH UNU summary for decision makers. See also the EurekAlert release http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-10/unu-dws103111.php