GIWEH 5th biannual magazine has been published beginning of August. The magazine, which you can find here, gives an update on GIWEH’s activites over the last 6 months.
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Stockholm World Water Week: First Impressions
Here are a few first impressions of the Stockholm World Water Week in Stockholm at which 12 members of the Swiss Water Partnership where present in various panels and co-convened various thematic events or co-convened the booth.
The thematic events on topics such as “Water Risks in Times of Globalisation and Sustainable Development”, “Sigmund Freud, the missing link in water and sanitation?” systemic behaviour change, water integrity or transforming learnings from errors into action encountered a wide success.
The booth, co-convened by 9 members, was well visited during the entire week and was an excellent place for Swiss Water Partnership members to meet with each others and with their partners. A reception on Monday evening, convened by the Embassy of Switzerland in Sweden and the Swiss Agency for Development and cooperation allowed to share Switzerland’s visions of water as an instrument of collaboration and peace.
You can also find impressions on the World Water Week on our Twitter page or in the Members News stream of our website, for example with the report on day 4 of the conference posted by WaterLex.
Many thanks to all members which attended for this successful week which allowed us to give a great visibility to the Swiss water sector.
Launch Working Group Wastewater
At the general assembly 2016 of the Swiss Water Partnership it was decided to launch a working group on the theme “wastewater”. Wastewater is the UN-Water Theme for 2017. Activities on World Water Day as well as the next Stockholm World Water Week (under the theme “Water and waste – reduce and reuse”) take up this subject.
The idea of the working group is to reflect on the key challenges in this sector and to prepare an event in Geneva on World Water Day, showcasing the visions and solutions of the Swiss water sector around the topic. The working group would also prepare some seminars/thematic events for the Stockholm World Water Week. Other actions, such as the redaction of a compendium of challenges and best practices, are also being considered.
The first meeting of this Working Group will take place on October 6 from 14:30 to 16:30 in Bern, in the offices of HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation. All members of the Swiss Water Partnership are welcome to join the meeting. Please confirm your participation as soon as possible by e-mail to Agnès Montangero (agnes.montangero@swisswaterpartnership.ch). Further information will be sent prior to the meeting to the subscribed persons.
Part of the results of the discussions at the General Assembly 2016
eco.naturkongress: call for workshop proposals
Water is the theme of the 12th edition of the eco.naturkongress which will take place on March 31 in Basel. On one hand, the congress will discuss the repercussions of climate change on the “water tower of Europe”, the tensions between the various uses of water and the current discussions around water quality. On the other hand, the congress will also look at the water footprint of Switzerland and the strategy of the country to implement the Sustainable Development Goal 6.
The Swiss Water Partnership is willing to use this opportunity to communicate in Switzerland on water and or activities as well as tobring SDG 6 and its challenges closer to the environmental community of Switzerland. The secretariat is thus looking for interested members who would like to join in the preparation of joint workshop proposals.
If you are interested to join in this process, please contact Agnès Montangero (agnes.montangero@swisswaterpartnership.ch). Deadline for submission is October 14.
Gallery of Photos: 2016 Stockholm World Water Week
Opening plenary session for World Water Week 2016
(From left to right): Chris Duckett, development director, Rose Osinde Alabaster, programme director, Africa region, Amanda Loeffen, WaterLex director general, Viktoria Mohos Naray, senior legal advisor, and Lorraine Schilling, communications team.
Léo Heller, UN Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, talking at the“Equitable access to water and sanitation: sustainable growth for all” event
Meeting with Léo Heller, UN Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, to introduce new members of the WaterLex team and talk about future support of WaterLex to the work of Mr Heller.
Amanda Loeffen, WaterLex Director General, introducing the organisation at theevent held at the Swiss Water Partnership booth on Sunday 28 August
Viktoria Mohos Naray, Senior legal advisor at WaterLex, talked about the Household water treatment and safe storage project, the NHRI Programmeand the Water and Jobs project
Viktoria Mohos Naray and Amanda Loeffen participating in a questions and answers session at the end of the presentation on the Water and Jobs project
Rose Osinde Alabaster, Programme Director for the African Region, gave a presentation about the Uganda country mapping that WaterLex undertook in 2015.
WaterLex officially launched the organisation Waterpreneurs during World Water Week 2016
WaterLex and Waterpreneurs after the launch of the organisation
Léo Heller, UN Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation at the “UN-Water stakeholder dialogue: interlinked implementation of SDG6″ event
WaterLex at 2016 Stockholm World Water Week: Day 4
On Wednesday, 31 August, WaterLex attended a morning session on the revised monitoring and reporting framework by the African Ministers’ Council on Water. The purpose of this framework is to support the secretariat of AMCOW in developing a common reporting format, in order to be able to showcase progress at the African Union summit on Africa’s advance regarding water and sanitation.
So far, 7 themes and 41 indicators have been set to monitor water and sanitation on the whole continent. Training to countries to build their monitoring capacity will start shortly.
WaterLex has been and continues to be very involved on the African continent with several training sessions given in Cote D’Ivoire and Kenya recently, an extensive country mapping of Uganda completed in 2015 and cooperation with the Pan-African parliament on the draft of a resolution on the right to water and sanitation in 2013.
In the afternoon, WaterLex Director General Amanda Loeffen attended the event organised by the High Level Panel on Water. The objective of this session was to give information and updates on the progress of the High Level Panel. The High-Level Panel is co-chaired by President Ameenah Gurib of Mauritius and President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico. “Among other actions, it will seek to:
• Motivate Effective Action – Focusing public policy dialogue, private sector models and practices, and civil society initiatives towards the Water SDG; and
• Advocate on financing and implementation – Promoting efforts to mobilize financial resources and scale-up investment for the Water SDG, including through innovative financing and implementation strategies.” (source)
At the same time, a talk was organised concerning the launch of the new Hotel Water Measurement Initiative, a tool that will help hotels measure and report on water consumption in a consistent way. This tool can potentially have a big impact on the sustainable use of water, because water use cannot be managed if it is not measured. This is particularly important in water scarce areas where hotels compete with the local population for the water resources.
Representatives of the International Tourism Partnership and Rezidor Hotel Group presenting the Hotel Water Measurement Initiative
As this was the last official day of the presence of WaterLex at World Water Week in Stockholm, WaterLex Director General Amanda Loeffen wanted to share her impressions about the event and its relevance for WaterLex:
This was my first time attending World Water Week in Stockholm and it was extremely interesting to see the major organisations of the water sector coming together in this forum.
This event has provided us with great opportunities to catch up with our major donors as well as engaging in constructive discussions with potential partners.
We are grateful to our partner the Swiss Water Partnership for sharing its booth with WaterLex. We are happy to support our Swiss heritage and to engage with other Swiss organisations dedicated to achieving universal access to water and sanitation.
WaterLex is truly starting to be recognised as the reference organisation for a human rights based water governance and we are looking forward to showcasing more of our work at Stockholm World Water Week 2017.”
For more information:
info (at) waterlex.org