Tomorrow, on March 22 – World Water Day 2017, Pope Francis is taking part in a Vatican event aimed at inspiring a global conversation on how the world values and understands its single most precious resource: water.

The Pope will make a live address from the Vatican tomorrow morning in which he will call for action on water. Afterwards 400 thought leaders from around the world will convene at WATERSHED to begin an unprecedented dialogue around the value and values of water.

The conference is co-hosted by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture and the Club of Rome. Other partners include Circle of Blue, with input from the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on the Environment. To find out more, click here for the programme.

Last month, the Pope met participants in a conference on the human right to water, organised by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. He told participants that questions concerning the right to water were not marginal, but basic and pressing.  Basic, because where there is water there is life, and pressing, because our common home needs to be protected.

An important new report has highlighted how humanitarian agencies are failing women refugees, particularly Syrian women, by ignoring their faith, cultural and gender needs.

The report, entitled More than Half (a reference to the fact that 52.8% of refugees, internally displaced people and those seeking asylum are female), was launched yesterday by our partner Global One.

It is the result of in-depth interviews with nearly 1,000 Syrian women refugees in Lebanon, carried out by a consortium of partners led by Global One, said Dr Husna Ahmad, CEO of Global One.

The report found that women and girls are particularly affected by lack of access to water and sanitation. As the main care givers, women often compromised their own hygiene needs to ensure their children had enough water. Lack of lights or locks on the communal toilet doors in refugee camps put women and girls at risk of harassment or rape.

The report said humanitarian organisations caring for refugees routinely fail to take into account the specific needs of women and girls such as their menstrual cycle. For example, 70% of the women questioned had no access to underwear and 73% sometimes or never had access to menstrual products.

Equally important, humanitarian agencies also failed to appreciate refugees' faith needs. "Humanitarian efforts are failing to address women as women but also as Muslim women," said Terri Harris of Global One. "So much has been taken from them by this conflict, we must not rob them of their identity."

Speaking at the launch, Helen Stawski of Islamic Relief said: "Faith provides people with resilience, with hope. Faith is a psychological buffer and a social network. It helps people form relationships, it is integral to people's resilience and dignity."