7 August 2018: The Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC), and the Sustainable Development Goals Center for Africa (SDGC/A) organized a workshop on scaling up investments in “green water” – rainwater stored as soil moisture that can be used by plants.

More than 80 workshop participants from national governments, universities, businesses and aid organizations gathered in Kigali, Rwanda, from 27-28 June 2018, to discuss how promoting access to technology and financing for green water could improve food security (SDG 2) and increase resilience in the face of climate change (SDG 13).

SIWI first launched a call for an “African Water Revolution” with regard to green water at World Water Week 2016.

Participants proposed establishing a green water fund as an initial step towards the larger vision of promoting investment and action on green water. They stressed that the SDGs will not be achieved without investment in scaling up green water technologies in Africa, and issued seven recommendations addressing the need for investment, stakeholder engagement and high-level leadership for managing green water as a way to address hunger and manage climate variability:

1. maximize the capture, storage and utilization of green water and rain-fed agriculture;
2. integrate green and blue water approaches and investments;
3. engage all stakeholders along agricultural value chains;
4. strengthen the business case for investing in green water;
5. develop innovative mechanisms and blended finance solutions;
6. embed financial solutions into a broader sustainability strategy; and
7. leverage high-level leadership and commitment.

In a video message, Amina Mohammed, UN Deputy Secretary-General, expressed the UN’s commitment to green water. Jean Claude Kayisinga, Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources, Rwanda, noted that 70% of Rwandan farmers engage in rain-fed agriculture and could switch to the “proven solution” of using green water.

SIWI first launched a call for an “African Water Revolution” with regard to green water at the Malin Falkenmark Symposium at World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden, in 2016. The institute announced that it will continue to advocate for green water financing, prior to a high-level roundtable in early 2019, where stakeholders will be invited to begin implementing the African Water Revolution. [SIWI Press Release] [SIWI 2016 Press Release on African Water Revolution]