The United Nations on Tuesday will designate Milwaukee as a U.N. Global Compact City, making it one of 13 such cities worldwide, in a move that will help the region promote its image abroad as an international hub of water technology.

The 5-year-old U.N. program obligates member cities to showcase progress on issues that involve human rights, environmentalism, health or labor standards. Milwaukee’s application centers on water quality, with a pledge to tackle a catalog of projects ranging from the development of sensors to monitor water safety to pilot technologies meant to strip radium from underground aquifers.

It’s now up to Milwaukee to demonstrate to the world that it can do something exemplary with the management of an increasingly scarce resource like water, said Paul James, director of the U.N. Global Compact Cities Program. James will make the announcement on Tuesday at a meeting of the Milwaukee 7 Water Council, a trade group formed to promote water-technology research and industry in southeastern Wisconsin.

View the full story by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel