Country: Sweden
Committee: Environmental
Topic: Water Access
Delegate: Juliana Lewis
School: Williamston High School
A major issue for many countries is safe and accessible water sources. This is a concern that is crucial to the safety of human life and should be addressed immediately. Over Around 700 million people in 43 countries suffer today from water scarcity. By 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world’s population could be living under water-stressed conditions. To add on to that, in the least developed countries, 22% of health care facilities have no water service, 21% no sanitation service, and 22% no waste management service. This is an extreme risk to the health of the nation and needs to be taken care of properly for the wellbeing of the citizens.
Sweden has an interest in making water more accessible, but most importantly, making it more sanitary. With approximately 97,500 lakes, Sweden is very accessible to water but has issues with runoff that contaminates the water supply due to precipitation. Sweden has spent quite a bit of effort in educating the public about the dangers of runoff and how to structure measures to eliminate the concern since most of the water supply comes from “on land” sources. Sweden supports the sustainable development plan for clean water. This ensures that clean water is a basic human need and supports developing countries’ access to clean and safe water.
Sweden plans to focus on the educational development of “run-off free water” to ensure safety in the bodies of water. Sweden also looks forward to working with developing countries to help gain access to water and keep consistent accessibility to these sources for the wellbeing of the countries citizens. The plans proposed will be handled by those nations directly concerned, and with consent, allowing the intervention of stronger countries to support them. Sweden hopes to side with neighboring European countries such as Germany, Finland, and Norway, to resolve this emergency.
- Juliana Lewis
