World Water Week Solving Water-related Challenges
In 2021, the prestigious World Water Week, which Our Future Water is proud to be a media partner of, brings all of its content online for a full-scale digital conference available to everyone. As devastating climate-related events escalate, participating in the debate, thereby being part of the solution, has never been more important.
For 30 years, World Water Week has been the world’s most influential meeting place for sharing knowledge and experience about global water issues. As a physical event it has gathered thousands of participants each year, to share expertise, collaborate and take action. In its digital format, it continues to be the place where the world’s leading experts come together with top politicians, business leaders, non-governmental organizations, and grassroot movements from around the world, to discuss the solutions.
Over five packed days, more than 300 sessions will be bundled together under the overarching theme of this year’s conference: building resilience faster. The sessions are curated by the organizer, Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), and convened by world-leading organizations. Much of the programme this year evolves around five top water-related challenges:
- How do we create resilient societies?
- How do we work with nature, rather than against?
- How do we transform the value chain into a circular economy?
- How can we redesign our cities in a more sustainable way?
- How can we achieve fundamental systemic change in order to shape a more sustainable world?
Inevitably, certain processes are of particular importance in the strive towards a more water-wise world. The private sector for instance. Globally, privately owned businesses are responsible for a majority of water usage, and they contribute to pollution and biodiversity loss on a great scale. It is therefore important to include the private sector in the debate, to make sure that the urgency of the matter is understood, and to make sure that they have the tools and knowledge they need to also be part of the solution.
That leads to another key component: effective communication. Only with relevant and up to date knowledge and evidence-based methods can we achieve sustainable change. That is why communicators, journalists and other information providers are also important pieces of the puzzle.
World Water Week 2021 therefore pay special attention to the role that business leaders and communicators can – and must – play. By labelling them accelerators, their influence is acknowledged, and they both have their dedicated sub-program that you should look out for if you are involved with any of the two:
- Accelerator: Leadership in business
- Accelerator: Communication & behaviour change
With World Water Week moving online, new opportunities have opened, and the organizers are making the most out of it. All sessions will, for the first time, be available for free to all registered participants and the conference takes place on a dedicated, state-of-the art web platform. There are lots of added opportunities available though, if you purchase a networking pass for the conference. This will open the door to further discussions, interactions, post-session debates, and networking sessions.
The sessions run for most of the day, from 7am to midnight (CEST), to accommodate participants in all time zones. The high-level opening ceremony sets the tone for the conference and during The Week, two prestigious prizes will be awarded to prominent people from the water sector: Stockholm Water Prize, often referred to as the Nobel Prize of the water world, and Stockholm Junior Water Prize, which is awarded to a young person or team who have done important water-related research.
All main sessions are hosted and produced in a studio by a professional production team, and no efforts are spared to make sure that World Water Week remains the friendly, diverse, hands-on, and global conference it has always been.
