26 April 2002: The Stakeholder Dialogue on Sustainable Water Management – Priorities for Policy Frameworks and Best Practices convened from 25-26 April 2002, at the Swiss Re Centre for Global Dialogue in Rüschlikon, Switzerland.

Organized by the Swiss Federal Government, which was represented by the interdepartmental working group, IDARio, and Swiss Re, the Dialogue brought together over 140 participants from governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, and the academic, investment and business communities.

Goals of the Stakeholder Dialogue included: identifying priority problem areas; identifying and assessing technical, regulatory, procedural and market solutions, as well as measures to improve equity and efficiency of regional and global water supply; fostering public-private partnerships in the areas of water management and framework conditions; and providing relevant input to awareness-raising programmes and media coverage, regional and international debates on water conservation, education, and in-depth solution-oriented research.

The Dialogue also aimed to further develop the conclusions of the International Conference on Freshwater, which took place from 3-7 December 2001 in Bonn, Germany, and to contribute to discussions on the freshwater issue at the upcoming Implementation Conference and the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).

The Dialogue’s deliberations will feed into a thesis paper, which the Swiss Government plans to use when developing its position for negotiations on freshwater issues at the WSSD, and as a means of communicating its intent to play an active role in the international debate on water. Swiss Re will also use the outcome for risk assessment, awareness building, development of water-related risk-mitigating activities, and screening of projects related to corporate social responsibility.

The IISD RS Sustainable Developments report outlining these discussions in detail can be found at: http://enb.iisd.org/crs/ruschlikon/index.html