2 September 2016: World Water Week took place in Stockholm, Sweden on the theme of ‘Water for Sustainable Growth.’ It focused especially on local and city-level implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6) on Clean Water and Sanitation.

Over 3,000 participants from more than 120 countries took part in the six-day event, organized by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI). The week concluded on 2 September with a closing plenary, in which Karin Lexén, Director of World Water Week, SIWI, stressed that water will be needed to achieve almost every SDG and to undertake action on climate change.

Panel discussions and poster sessions took place throughout World Water Week.

On 29 August, the Governments of France, Germany, Hungary and the Netherlands jointly hosted a High-Level Panel on the 2030 Global Water Architecture, attended by representatives of government and international organizations, including Eugene Ludovic Wamalwa, Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Water and Irrigation, Kenya. Panelists discussed ways to improve the fragmented nature of the global water institutional architecture. They noted the recommendation of the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation (UNSGAB) that a UN intergovernmental committee on water be established to promote implementation of the water-related goals in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. They considered that an adequate water architecture for achieving the 2030 Agenda would: motivate follow-up and review of all water-related goals and targets; provide input to the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF); have the support of a secretariat; be linked to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC); and have minimal implications for the UN budget. Panelists discussed the challenges that would be involved in setting up a new UN body of this kind, and considered how improvements in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), integrated water resource management (IWRM), water quality and disaster risk reduction (DRR) would be promoted.

World Water Week also included occasions for taking stock of progress toward the Paris Agreement on climate. On 1 September, the Secretariat of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) hosted a panel event highlighting the interconnected nature of drought, food insecurity, conflict and migration. Panelists, including representatives from the Gambia, SIWI, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the UNCCD, discussed ways to address such climate-induced hazards. They drew attention to the need to empower rural populations and maintain coordinated policy approaches.

Also on 1 September, the World Bank and the International Water Association (IWA) announced that they would form a global partnership to improve the performance of water utilities with regard to non-revenue water (NRW). NRW is water that is pumped, but unaccounted for in invoicing systems due losses, for example, through leakage. The partnership will promote the use of performance-based contracts (PBCs) to reduce NRW in developing countries, and develop the market of suppliers.

At the closing plenary on 2 September, Abdeladim Lhafi, High Commissioner for the forthcoming 22nd Conference of the Parties (COP 22) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and High Commissioner for Water, Forestry and Fight Against Desertification in Morocco, drew attention to COP 22 as “the conference of implementation.” Karolina Skog, Environment Minister, Sweden, urged all concerned to identify climate-related risks and vulnerabilities, and to invest in the relevant “smart water” technologies, which, she said, would be of benefit in the future.

Two prizes were awarded during World Water Week: the Stockholm Water Prize to Joan Rose, US, for her work on water quality and public health, and the Stockholm Junior Water Prize to three students from Thailand, for their water retention technology based on design features of Bromeliad plant.

World Water Week in 2017 will focus on the theme of ‘Water and Waste – Reduce and Reuse.’ [Opening Press Release] [World Water Week Programme] [UNCCD Press Release] [Slideshare Presentation on the 2030 Global Water Architecture] [World Bank Press Release] [Closing Press Release] [World Water Week Website]