WaterAid at the UN for World Water Day!

On World Water Day, Monday 22 March, WaterAid Chief Executive Barbara Frost will be speaking at the UN in New York.

In advance of this, WaterAid Campaigns Manager Kate Turner blogs from New York:

Sunday:
This morning, myself, Barbara, Margaret, Jonathan and Jan met to discuss World Water Day and plans for the rest of the trip.

We are meeting Deputy and Permanent Representatives from a number of countries and a number of UN agencies.

The plan for tomorrow is an early start, with Jan and Barbara speaking on Panels on the MDG's and Climate Change. We are going to push the cause of sanitation, critical to achieving the MDG's.

The event is due to be webcast live here!

After our first meeting, we met with David Winder, Chief Executive of WaterAid in America, in his garden. Then further information with Jan before a quick dinner at a local Chinese.

Obama is trying to push through healthcare, we are pushing on with water and sanitation (aka WASH!).

Good luck all with the World Water Day plans, loving the pix from Cameroon, Ghana, UK, India and Australia among others - we will do our best tomorrow too - to highlight the water and sanitation crisis, and create the next steps for getting water and sanitation to the world's poorest people.

Background information - WaterAid at the UN

Barbara Frost will address the UN General Assembly, including Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, focusing on the issue of water and climate change, pressing for urgent action on the global water and sanitation crisis.

Former UN General Assembly President and Special Envoy to Darfur and current WaterAid Sweden Chair, Jan Eliasson, will also take part in the event, chairing a panel on water and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The debate comes at a critical time in the fight to end the water and sanitation crisis. In April, ministers will meet for the first ever High Level Meeting on Water and Sanitation.

Then, in September, world leaders will meet for the MDG Review Summit to examine progress on the 2015 targets to date.

On the same day as the UN debates - Monday 22 March, World Water Day - tens of thousands of people in 68 countries will take their place in the World's Longest Toilet Queue to draw attention to the fact that 4,000 children die every day because of lack access to sanitation and safe water.

Find out what else is happening on World Water Day, and how you can get involved, here.