Success stories in the fight for access to basic sanitation are a source of lessons to attain the SDG 6. The webinar “Valuing toilets beyond visible” showcased three experiences that provide valuable knowledge on the complex relationship between defecation and sanitation: the fight against open defecation, the use of feces and the healthiness of slums.

Uncontrolled urban growth destroys water around it, creating a serious supply problem. Many cities around the world need to search for water further and further away. In the short film Los Conductores del Agua - The Drivers of Water, a micro-documentary finalist at the We Art Water Film Festival 5, the so-called “piperos”, the water carriers, bear witness to this problem in the Mexican city of Morelia.

On World Toilet Day, the UN calls for valuing this simple facility that is critical to attaining SDG 6 and enabling millions of people to move towards the eradication of poverty, the achievement of health, gender equality and dignity. The sanitation investment gap continues to divide rich and poor. If we do not close it, SDG 6 will remain a long way off.

Attaining the SDGs implicates all players involved in human progress, especially architecture, design, technology and tourism. Smart (Collective) Creativity, the new forum for dialogue of the Smart Water platform, has been created to promote creative participation in these key sectors for our immediate future through water. Each one of us counts to take on the urban and industrial challenge we are facing.

In the last decade, science has discovered that we are probably on the verge of surpassing several “climate tipping points”. It is essential to understand what these are in order to know where to focus mitigation strategies and efforts. They will influence the decisions made at the COP26 in Glasgow, where the success or failure of action against the climate crisis is at stake. We must not fail.

The nomadic people spread throughout the Sahel are the ones who know best the harsh climate of the great sub-Saharan strip. The Fulani are a good example. Their ancestral shepherding, farming and food production methods and their deep-rooted sense of solidarity are the foundation of their resilience to poor management of land and violence. Now, climate change is added to the threats. The world must help preserve their ancestral wisdom.

Climate change is affecting wildlife reserves all around the world. In Africa, nature parks, which are a huge biosphere reserve, are experiencing increasingly prolonged droughts. In Kenya, schoolchildren follow the example of Patrick Mwalua, a pioneering conservationist, and are incorporating the saving of water and energy into their schoolwork. This the story of the short film Environmentalists, shortlisted micro-documentary at the We Art Water Film Festival 5.

Since the 1970s, politicians, economists and scientists have known that climate is changing. The famines in the 1980s in Africa gave media visibility to what until then had been an obscure geopolitical strategy factor and brought climatology closer to society. We are now aware of the time we have lost. Let’s not waste any more.