World Water Forum

From WaterWiki

The World Water Forum

1 About
2 Further Readings, References, Links
3 Source(s)

About

The World Water Forum is an initiative of the World Water Council (WWC) that has the aim of raising the awareness on water issues all over the world. As the main international event on water, it seeks to enable multi-stakeholder participation and dialogue to influence water policy making at a global level, thus assuring better living standards for people all over the world and a more responsible social behavior towards water issues in-line with the pursuit of sustainable development.

The World Water Fora are built on the knowledge, experience and input of different types of organizations active in the global water polity. It is a venture founded on the principles of collaboration, partnership and innovation.

The 1st World Water Forum

It was held in Marrakech in March 1997. On this occasion, the WWC received the mandate to develop a long-term “Vision for Water, Life and the Environment in the 21st century”, to be presented during the 2nd Forum.

The 2nd World Water Forum

It was held in The Hague in 2000. Over 5,000 participants discussed the results of the document “Vision for Water, Life and the Environment in the 21st century”. The Vision was an unprecedented prospective exercise conducted through a participatory approach, which provided an overview of the state of the world's water resource and its future.

A number of commitments were made by governments and other stakeholders for action to be taken following the Forum. The WWC committed to monitor actions leading to the fulfillment of the Vision. The Vision had successfully contributed to launch a movement which clearly aimed at influencing policy makers and governments.

The 3rd World Water Forum (Osaka/Japan, March 2003)

It took place in Kyoto, Shiga and Osaka, Japan in March 2003. New concepts were introduced such as a Virtual Water Forum and the Water Voices Project. Following up on its commitment from the 2nd Forum, the WWC launched the World Water Actions report, an inventory of over 3,000 local water actions. This Forum was the largest water conference in history, gathering 24,000 participants. A Ministerial Conference was held in parallel and brought together 130 Ministers. Hundreds of commitments to action were made from participants in both the Forum and the Ministerial Conference and it was requested for each session organizer to state what concrete output would follow their respective session.