President represents IBGE in the 8th World Water Forum
March 22, 2018 09h00 AM | Last Updated: March 23, 2018 06h03 PM
The IBGE president, Roberto Olinto Ramos, took part yesterday (22) in the opening session of the event Implementation and Monitoring of the 6th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 6) in Brazil, in the 8th World Water Forum, held in Brasília (DF). The 6th SDG sets targets to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
Besides Mr. Olinto, the session had the presences of the director-president of the National Water Agency (ANA), Christianne Dias, the executive secretary of the National Commission for the SDGs and the national secretary of Social Articulation, Henrique Villa, the adjunct-director of the Regional, Urban and Environmental Studies and Policies of the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea), Adolfo Sachsida.
Denise Kronemberger, IBGE's advisor to the president, participated in one of the sessions held in partnership with the Ipea and spoke of the ongoing actions taken by the IBGE in relation to the SDGs.
The World Water Forum, held for the first time in the South hemisphere, takes place from March 18 to 23, right after the launch of the Environmental-Economic Accountings for Water (2013-2015), an unprecedented study released on Friday (16) by the IBGE in partnership with the Ministry of the Environment (MMA) and the National Water Agency (ANA).
Environmental-Economic Accountings for Water were presented at the event
The Water Accounts were also presented yesterday, with the participation of representatives from the peer institutions. For IBGE's director of Geosciences, Wadih Neto, the methodology applied in the study is an example of integrated work between geosciences and statistics, since it is related to the System of National Accounts managed by the Institute: "the Directorate of Surveys has always worked with monetary values, and needed technicians with hydrology knowledge, for example."
Wadih adds that "the Environmental-Economic Accounts display all the transactions in figures and in physical units, so they not only monitor water costs, but also the quantity of liters the Economy demands from the Environment". The study revealed that the economic activities that most consumed water in 2015 were related to Agriculture, forestry, fishing and aquaculture, with 77.6% of the total.
According to ANA's superintendent of Water Resource Planning, Sérgio Ayrimoraes, it is necessary to pay close attention to the water distribution along the territory for government planning: "it is important to have policies that foster the development of regions in the country according to their amount of water, encouraging activities that depend less on the resource where it is not available, and making a more rational use of it in the regions where it abounds".
Besides being relevant to policy making and implementation, the information of the Water Accounts can also influence the market. "As it reveals the efficiency of water use in the agriculture and industry, the study helps producers to compare themselves with others in the country in order to distinguish their water use and technology. Since it can be useful for pricing policy, it can also help as an instrument for market policies to increase water use efficiency", says the IBGE Director of Geosciences.
On the World Water Forum
The 8th World Water Forum, which is being held in Brasilia between 18 and 23 of March, is organized every three years by the World Water Council in partnership with the host city and country. The Council is an international organization that gathers nearly 400 institutions related to water issues in approximately 70 countries, and it comprises representatives from the government, universities, civil society, enterprises and non-governmental organizations.
