As 2019 prepares for its big entrance, we are also delighted to welcome the World Bank's Water Cartoon Calendar, hot off the press! Each year, the calendar shines a light on the most pressing water issues faced by communities around the world and aims to stimulate inspiration and ideas in pursuit of a healthy and water-secure world for all.
Water is at the center of economic and social development: it is vital to maintain health, grow food, generate energy, manage the environment, and create jobs. However, 2.1 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water services and 4.5 billion people lack safely managed sanitation services. And water-related hazards, including floods, storms, and droughts, are responsible for 9 out of 10 natural disasters. Climate change is expected to increase this risk, in addition to placing greater stress on water supplies.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call upon us to go further and faster in providing safe and sustainable water and sanitation for all, while bringing our focus to other critical dimensions of the broad water sector.
These new challenges and this new context require new responses. So, in 2017, the World Bank, together with its partners, launched a new partnership for a healthy and water-secure world, the Global Water Security and Sanitation Partnership (GWSP).
Under the auspices of GWSP, the Water Cartoon Calendar has carried on the tradition of raising awareness around critical global water issues through humor. Five priority themes have been identified where action is critically needed to achieve the SDGs for water—sustainability, inclusion, institutions, financing and resilience—which provide the inspiration for the 2019 Water Cartoon Calendar. Check the 12 cartoons below, share with #WaterCartoon on social media, and download a high-resolution version of the calendar to print on your printer.
Read this blog on the calendar creation process, and view earlier editions: Cartoon Calendar 2018 | Cartoon Calendar 2017
