The Global Water Challenge
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 2016 report links water, growth and finance and calls for financing investments in water security for sustainable growth. The urgency to address water challenges across the world is reflected in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the world leaders in Paris in 2015 at the historic UN Summit where 193 countries signed up.
Yet the world today is dominated by powerful actors in the political arena whose priorities do not include water and who are wavering in their commitments to water security and climate change.
The cataclysmic political changes of 2016 may seriously undermine the water destiny of many nations and put these SDGs out of reach. The UN, the defender of the right to water in developing countries, is itself in peril. Suddenly the euphoria of Paris 2015 is giving way to disappointment and failing hope in a world increasingly presided over by a few powerful decision-makers whose world view is narrow and without foresight. In the regional context some countries are threatening to use water as a tool of political pressure leading to unnecessary turmoil and conflict.
Given the fast changing global political realities, the future of water is at risk. Leading water experts and eminent personalities at this conference will look at the future of water with all its dissonance, discord and despair but also the infinite possibilities of co-existence and sharing of new solutions to provide answers to the challenges facing us. The conference will address these issues through the prism of Rights and Entitlements, Water Economy, Science and Technology and Climate Change.