UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme

The UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP) was established in 2000 in response to a call from the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) to produce a UN system-wide periodic global overview of the status in terms of quantity and quality, use and management of freshwater resources.

WWAP actively coordinates the sustained efforts of a broad coalition of UN-Water members and various international partners. This collaboration is central to producing the World Water Development Report (WWDR), the UN-Water's flagship report on water and sanitation issues. Released annually, the WWDR focuses on different strategic water issues each year, providing a comprehensive review of the global state of freshwater resources.

WWAP also developed a comprehensive gender component with concrete achievements, namely, the development of Toolkit on Sex-disaggregated Water Data and the Call for Action Initiative supported by a Multi-Stakeholder Coalition composed of Member State institutions, UN agencies, international and regional organizations, Official Development Assistance (ODA) agencies, and civil society.