The winners of the fifth edition of the We Art Water Film Festival will be announced on Monday, World Water Day. The selected 45 short films compose a journey filled with revelations and emotions through our relationship with water. Each piece is a deep reflection about its value and can be extended to anyone around the world. With this Festival, the value of water expands to the art of communication, essential to ensure that everyone has access to it.

The ancient history of mankind has been marked by all kinds of crises caused by the lack of water due to climate changes. Many cultures were able to overcome them, others were unable to adapt and declined. We have to learn from the cultures that resisted and those that succumbed.

When is a country known to be water efficient, and is its agriculture, industry or urban supply water efficient? The attainment of the SDG 6 by 2030 forces us to provide an answer to these questions. UN Water has developed certain indicators to help manage water efficiency and also to understand it.

Statistics have overlooked them until now, but they are the closest to people.  Scattered trees have been crucial for rural economies and vital for the survival in arid regions. We now have tools to know more about them and corroborate their importance in the environmental balance, the fight against desertification and soil management.

In all activities carried out during this hard year, we have been faced with human suffering, but we have also found hope. Hope generated by the knowledge of being understood and helped; the one generated by the enthusiasm and generosity of the institutions we collaborate with. These have redoubled their efforts despite all difficulties and deserve our admiration and gratitude. We will continue to be there, collaborating to overcome them, because we share the conviction that solidarity is a never ending asset.

The Foundation’s projects have provided water, sanitation and hygiene to more than 205,000 students and teachers in the most neglected regions of the world. The experience obtained in nine of the most disadvantaged countries corroborates the importance of schools as drivers of the development of hygiene and social justice. Now more than ever due to the pandemic, drinking water and adequate facilities are the base of the success of any educational goal. Mankind needs clean and healthy schools. Without them, no other SDG will be fully attained.

Peru is one of the countries with the greatest water contrasts. The sustainable development of its enormous farming potential depends on the adequate management of water and the territory. To achieve this, the country has the richness of the ancestral tradition that most cared for water as the main link to the land: the Incan culture. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of recovering this farming model based on the understanding of the laws of nature and their compliance.

Toilets define a dual scope of responsibility: we must bring them to everyone and we must use them correctly. Having one is a demand for health, dignity and hope for economic development for more than 4.2 billion people. Those who already have one are obliged to a responsible use, essential for the proper functioning of the water cycle and a key factor for the adaptation to climate change.