At last week’s United Nations 72nd General Assembly, recommendations from the Global High-Level Panel on Water and Peace were presented, said Costa Rica’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Costa Rica joined the panel when it was established in 2015, and played an important role in developing mechanisms and best practices for promoting cooperation regarding water supplies and sources.

Costa Rican Minister of Foreign Affairs, Manuel A. González Sanz, co-organized the event entitled, “Cooperation in water as a tool to prevent conflict,” together with with Slovenia, Senegal and Switzerland.

 

The expert panel’s three main recommendations included strengthening an international framework for water cooperation, achieving greater state support and political commitment, and fostering greater cooperation between states.

The experiences of Costa Rica in cross-border cooperation on the subject were shared, including sustainable development project in the binational Costa Rica-Panama Sixaola river basin, as well as environmental management and sustainable development in the Costa Rica-Nicaragua San Juan River basin. The need to convert these projects and initiatives into public policies to work with local communities in these binational watersheds was highlighted by Gonzalez.

Foreign Minister González highlighted the fundamental value of multilateralism and international law as the only platforms where the international community can find solutions to complex global problems.

The work of the panel is crucial for setting the stage for future dialogue and conciliation over water, and has laid the foundation by creating an instrument of peace that aims to eliminate the use of water as a weapon of violence and coercion, said the ministry.