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World Water Week Daily Friday 2 September, 2016

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STOCKHOLM<br />

waterfront<br />

world water week daily|FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 2 | <strong>2016</strong><br />

<strong>Water</strong><br />

cannot be<br />

treated as<br />

an isolated<br />

issue<br />

H.R.H. Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden<br />

TEXT |görrel espelund PHOTO | thomas henrikson<br />

ALL STAKEHOLDERS MUST COME TOGETHER TO<br />

REALIZE THE 2030 AGENDA. THERE IS ALSO A<br />

NEED TO CONNECT THE SDGS WITH THE PARIS<br />

AGREEMENT, BOTH PROCESSES STRIVING<br />

TOWARDS THE SAME GOAL. THIS WAS THE<br />

MESSAGE FROM THE BUILDING A RESILIENT<br />

FUTURE THROUGH WATER EVENT.<br />

Several high-profile speakers gathered<br />

yesterday to highlight the importance<br />

of making water a central element in<br />

bringing the Sustainable Development<br />

Goals and the Paris Agreement forward.<br />

H.R.H. Crown Princess Victoria, an<br />

SDG Advocate, pointed out that water is<br />

not an isolated development issue, and<br />

cannot be treated as such.<br />

“Disease, poverty, inequality. This is<br />

what we really talk about when we discuss<br />

water, so let’s change the perspective.<br />

Let’s talk about health, economic<br />

development and equal opportunities<br />

for boys and girls. This is what we can<br />

achieve if we make the right decisions<br />

about water today,” she said.<br />

H.R.H. Crown Princess Victoria also<br />

mentioned the United Nation’s <strong>World</strong><br />

<strong>Water</strong> Development report and the connection<br />

between water and jobs, as well<br />

as the positive correlation between water<br />

investments and economic growth.<br />

“Investing in safe drinking water and<br />

sanitation is, in fact, investing in health.<br />

And it’s also investing in access to education,<br />

jobs and sustainable economic<br />

growth,” she said.<br />

Touching on the same theme, UN<br />

Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson,<br />

pointed out that the three pillars of the<br />

United Nations: peace, development<br />

and human rights, can also be applied<br />

to water.<br />

“Peace, because water is central to the<br />

security of communities and nations. Life,<br />

because water is indispensable to development.<br />

Dignity, because water is a human<br />

right fundamental to justice and the rule of<br />

law,” he said.<br />

It might seem that we live in a time of<br />

deep uncertainties and great risk, but we<br />

also live in a world of hope, Eliasson added.<br />

“The 2030 Agenda and the Climate<br />

Agreement are ground-breaking, ambitious<br />

and transformational. They are to<br />

be seen together, reflecting the interdependent<br />

relationship between peace,<br />

development and human rights.”<br />

The upcoming COP22 will be hosted<br />

by Morocco, a country that knows the<br />

importance of each drop of water, as<br />

Hakima El Haité, Delegate Minister in<br />

Charge of Environment, Morocco and<br />

COP22 host, remarked. She reminded<br />

the delegates that a special day has been<br />

set aside to highlight water issues at<br />

COP22.<br />

Rounding off yesterday morning’s<br />

event, Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, Special<br />

Advisor to the High Level Panel on<br />

<strong>Water</strong> and President of COP20, said he<br />

had high hopes that Stockholm would<br />

continue to be an important arena for<br />

water issues.<br />

“In the future I think we will see this<br />

meeting as the water-COP. The most<br />

important place to meet and discuss<br />

water,” he said.<br />

published by stockholm international water institute


FRIDAY: WORLD WATER WEEK DAILY<br />

Simi Kamal<br />

FOCUS ON WATER SHORTAGES<br />

IN BIG CITIES<br />

<strong>Water</strong> scarcity is not only a problem for<br />

arid rural areas, it is also very much a<br />

reality in large cities around the world. In<br />

the three-part seminar yesterday, <strong>Water</strong><br />

for sustainable and inclusive cities: how<br />

to induce change?, a series of case studies<br />

and panel discussions shed light on water<br />

issues in an urban context.<br />

During the closing session, Simi Kamal<br />

from the Karachi <strong>Water</strong> Partnership painted<br />

a very clear picture of the problem when she<br />

said that in some parts of her hometown in<br />

Pakistan, with a population of 24 million,<br />

a litre of water costs more than a litre of oil,<br />

due to poor supply.<br />

In terms of solutions, much of the closing<br />

discussion centred upon the need for<br />

proper leadership and inclusive partnerships<br />

including all stakeholders.<br />

“Then again, the only really important<br />

stakeholders here are in fact future generations,”<br />

Célia Blauel, deputy mayor of Paris, said.<br />

NUMBER OF THE DAY<br />

WANTED: BOLD CORPORATES<br />

TO HELP INTRODUCE<br />

UNIVERSAL WASH<br />

Corporates were called on to apply their<br />

“political clout and marketing expertise” to<br />

support the introduction of universal<br />

WASH during the Scaling up WASH action<br />

in company supply chains: promoting sustainable<br />

growth session yesterday.<br />

“There’s an opportunity for progressive<br />

corporates to align themselves with many other<br />

actors that are arguing for system-wide change<br />

through proper investment in WASH at national,<br />

regional, and international levels,” Nick<br />

Hepworth of <strong>Water</strong> Witness International said.<br />

While praising progress made by some<br />

companies, he reminded participants that basic<br />

WASH standards had been in place under an international<br />

ILO agreement for the past 54 years.<br />

“WASH issues are systemic, they’re about<br />

a lack of government investment […] so<br />

fiddling about at the edges with corporates<br />

and supply chains might not be the most<br />

productive response.”<br />

The system-wide focus was picked up by Lisa<br />

Hook, from clothing group Gap who, although<br />

warning of “issue fatigue” – with companies<br />

and other actors often struggling to prioritize<br />

water over other issues – said: “Governance is<br />

important. WASH is a systems-wide issue, and<br />

will need systems-wide solutions.”<br />

INTERACTIVE POSTERS PROVIDE SNAPSHOT OF THE WEEK<br />

Throughout <strong>World</strong> <strong>Water</strong> <strong>Week</strong>, an interactive<br />

poster exhibition has provided visitors<br />

with selected content from the <strong>Week</strong>’s<br />

programme. This was the scene yesterday,<br />

as delegates learnt about a variety of programmes,<br />

including water planning in the<br />

US, a ‘sponge city’ in Kenya, and wastewater<br />

reuse in Sri Lanka.<br />

10<br />

10<br />

LITRES OF WATER ARE REQUIRED TO PRODUCE ONE<br />

SHEET OF PAPER.<br />

SOURCE: UNITED NATIONS INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION<br />

“There is<br />

nothing<br />

like a good<br />

crisis to<br />

bring about<br />

change”<br />

Neil Macleod,<br />

private water consultant<br />

SALTWATER THREAT<br />

TO COASTAL<br />

GROUNDWATER<br />

Saltwater intrusion into<br />

groundwater is becoming an<br />

increasingly urgent problem<br />

in many parts of the world,<br />

something which was covered<br />

in depth during a seminar<br />

yesterday morning.<br />

The problem in coastal<br />

areas is often that the natural<br />

boundary between seawater<br />

and the freshwater that sits<br />

under land is compromised<br />

by the inland pumping of<br />

freshwater.<br />

Since a large – and growing<br />

– proportion of the world’s<br />

population lives in coastal<br />

areas, relying heavily on<br />

groundwater as a source of<br />

freshwater, the issue of saltwater<br />

intrusion needs urgent<br />

attention, the speakers at the<br />

seminar argued.<br />

They called for better,<br />

and preferably dedicated<br />

groundwater management,<br />

where rainfall and salt levels<br />

are carefully monitored, so<br />

that pumping can be adjusted<br />

accordingly. In some places<br />

horizontal wells, where water<br />

is only drawn from the top<br />

level of the groundwater, has<br />

proven efficient, but to compensate<br />

during dry periods,<br />

systems for rainwater harvesting<br />

and recycled waste water<br />

also have to be explored, the<br />

panellists concluded.


GUEST COLUMN<br />

THE OLYMPICS OF WATER<br />

Jan Eliasson<br />

mobilized by water<br />

TEXT | görrel espelund PHOTO |thomas henrikson<br />

THE RIGHT TO WATER IS A HUMAN<br />

RIGHT AND SANITATION IS AN<br />

INTEGRAL PART OF OVERALL<br />

DEVELOPMENT. THAT IS THE<br />

MESSAGE FROM UN DEPUTY<br />

SECRETARY GENERAL JAN<br />

ELIASSON.<br />

Eliasson is the man who<br />

introduced the words “toilet”<br />

and “open defection” to<br />

diplomatic discussions. And<br />

when he did so, the translators<br />

at the UN headquarters<br />

in New York weren’t sure<br />

what he’d really said.<br />

“Some of them couldn’t<br />

even translate ‘open defecation’,”<br />

he says.<br />

“Bringing these words<br />

and challenges to the diplomatic<br />

discourse is to me<br />

essential. They bring the<br />

stark reality into our meeting<br />

rooms.”<br />

Ever since his appointment<br />

as the emergency<br />

coordinator of the UN in Somalia<br />

in 1992, Eliasson has<br />

been a strong advocate for<br />

water-related issues.<br />

“I saw children dying of<br />

dehydration, dysentery and<br />

diarrhoea. And I decided<br />

then and there to never stop<br />

fighting for the fundamental<br />

right to clean water and<br />

sanitation for all.”<br />

Today, 24 years later, he’d<br />

like to stress that water is<br />

more than a development issue:<br />

it’s a vital area to peace<br />

and human rights.<br />

“A child missing school<br />

to collect water, is deprived<br />

of an essential right. Just<br />

like a thirteen-year old<br />

girl missing her education<br />

because the school lacks<br />

toilets for girls. If you look at<br />

water from that perspective<br />

it becomes a much broader<br />

concept that will gather a<br />

broader coalition of partners<br />

and a larger network.”<br />

The SDG-system is a good<br />

start to bringing water up<br />

the world agenda. But to<br />

make it happen in reality all<br />

actors are needed, not only<br />

governments and international<br />

organizations.<br />

“We need the private<br />

sector, scientific community,<br />

civil society, the philanthropic<br />

world, and of course<br />

we need to mobilize social<br />

media and use all the modern<br />

communications that<br />

are at hand.”<br />

Concrete action, he adds,<br />

is always the most difficult<br />

challenge, but on this<br />

Eliasson is hopeful.<br />

“The structure of the<br />

SDGs is very good and the<br />

interrelationship between<br />

goals is realized by everybody.<br />

It’s caught on. We feel<br />

there’s a lot of energy and<br />

I think people are realizing<br />

this is really serious. This is<br />

about our future.”<br />

“<strong>Water</strong> is such a beautiful<br />

subject, it’s mobilizing by<br />

nature.”<br />

Hundreds of sessions, thousands of people, tens of<br />

thousands of ideas, and - unlike in most international<br />

gatherings - complete agreement that water is integral<br />

to climate, the SDGs and everyday health and quality<br />

of life.<br />

Needless to say, I missed nearly everything. <strong>World</strong><br />

<strong>Water</strong> <strong>Week</strong> is the Olympics of water and there’s no<br />

way to catch it all. Enabling investment in irrigation<br />

in sub-Saharan Africa was, I am told, a humdinger of<br />

a session. I wish I had been to the water and mining<br />

meet. Was Sigmund Freud really the missing link in<br />

water and sanitation? Don’t ask me.<br />

Instead, in the three days I was here, I met remarkable<br />

people. Joan B. Rose, the Stockholm <strong>Water</strong> Prize<br />

laurate, trebled my understanding of pollution. Her<br />

message about how the world is under attack from<br />

new and old pathogens was urgent, eloquent and<br />

scary. But she remained optimistic. I felt for her husband,<br />

who she drags from one water treatment plant<br />

to another.<br />

Between interviewing Ashok Swain and Anders<br />

Jägerskog, authors of a brilliant new book on Middle<br />

East water threats, and hearing of Asia’s water stress,<br />

the Guardian ran a session on valuing water. Anton<br />

Earle, SIWI’s man in Africa, and Andrew Fourie of SAB<br />

Miller, both argued well that we need to be talking to<br />

farmers as well as governments.<br />

My faith in power was restored by Isabella Lövin,<br />

Sweden’s deputy prime minister, who explained the<br />

reality of power-sharing and competing demands for<br />

money. To its credit, Sweden’s spending on climate<br />

change and water and sanitation has vastly increased.<br />

Another Green, deputy mayor of Paris, Célia<br />

Blauel, was also inspirational. She not only helped<br />

drive through the UN climate deal last December, but<br />

convened the meeting of world mayors who shamed<br />

national politicians by committing to far stronger targets.<br />

Blauel was evidence that progress on water could<br />

be made more at city level.<br />

Hats off, too, to the <strong>World</strong> Bank, for once not on the<br />

rack for big dams or water privatization. Jennifer Sara,<br />

director of its water practice division, backed strongly<br />

President Modi of India’s massive investment in sanitation.<br />

The money spent, she said, would repay itself<br />

over and over again. Why can’t other governments get<br />

this?<br />

But the last word goes to Catarina De Albuquerque,<br />

the chair of Sanitation and <strong>Water</strong> for All. Not only did<br />

she passionately speak up for the disadvantaged, she<br />

reminded everyone why they were there at Stockholm.<br />

The human right to water.<br />

John Vidal<br />

John Vidal is the Guardian’s environment editor


COMPLEX LINK BETWEEN DROUGHT AND MIGRATION<br />

TEXT | andreas karlsson PHOTO |thomas henrikson<br />

DROUGHT AND FORCED MIGRATION ARE OFTEN<br />

LINKED, SUGGESTING THAT THE FORMER IS A<br />

COMMON CAUSE FOR THE LATTER.<br />

During a well-attended seminar yesterday,<br />

Robert McLeman from Wilfrid<br />

Laurier University in Canada, a<br />

world-renowned authority on the<br />

matter, delivered the keynote speech.<br />

“Migration due to drought is not<br />

something that happens suddenly,<br />

although we sometimes get that feeling<br />

from media reports. It is in fact a long<br />

process with several steps of adaptation<br />

to a changing situation before we reach<br />

a tipping point,” McLeman said.<br />

Before that happens, he added, there<br />

is often an array of reasons, such as<br />

political unrest, violence and food<br />

insecurity, contributing to a situation<br />

where people eventually find themselves<br />

in a position where they have no option<br />

but to leave their homes. Drought alone<br />

is therefore not a sufficient explanation<br />

to forced migration.<br />

Speaking about migratory patterns he<br />

reminded attendees that a vast majority<br />

of migration is internal. China alone<br />

is estimated to have about 200 million<br />

internal migrants, compared with some<br />

250 million people worldwide living<br />

outside their home country.<br />

“Currently, 54 per cent of international<br />

refugees come from only<br />

three countries: Somalia, Syria and<br />

Robert McLeman<br />

Afghanistan – countries that also experience<br />

severe problems with drought. So<br />

there is indeed a connection here, but it<br />

is much more complex that one might<br />

think,” he said.<br />

world water week voices<br />

WHAT did you like MOST ABOUT WORLD WATER WEEK?<br />

Stephanie Motz,<br />

Grundfos, Germany<br />

“Meeting people<br />

from all around the<br />

world, also on a<br />

very high level,<br />

can really make an<br />

impact on how we<br />

treat water.”<br />

Danka Thalmeinerova,<br />

GWP, Sweden<br />

“The Junior <strong>Water</strong><br />

Prize because those<br />

young people, all of<br />

them, did so much<br />

over two, three years:<br />

they were really devoted<br />

– that’s our future.”<br />

Mthokozisi Pius Duze,<br />

Mhlathuze <strong>Water</strong>, South<br />

Africa<br />

“I value the experiences<br />

that were shared by<br />

different countries<br />

on how they use<br />

and conserve water<br />

– making sure that<br />

water remains for<br />

generations to come.”<br />

Tui Shortland, Te<br />

Kapehu Whetu,<br />

New Zealand<br />

“I’m here raising the<br />

visibility of Pacific<br />

issues; and what I value<br />

is the ability to connect<br />

with different people<br />

and look at future<br />

collaborations.”<br />

Zerihun Abebe Yigsaw,<br />

Ministry of Foreign<br />

Affairs, Ethiopia<br />

“The way that<br />

<strong>World</strong> <strong>Water</strong> <strong>Week</strong><br />

helps us to further<br />

our understanding<br />

of the issues, create<br />

awareness of the<br />

issues, and to<br />

mobilize finance.”<br />

Rochi Khemka, <strong>Water</strong><br />

Resources Lin Cheng, Group, WWF, India China<br />

“I have really valued<br />

the amount of<br />

knowledge sharing,<br />

and enjoyed meeting<br />

friends from around<br />

the world – it’s been<br />

great!”<br />

Digital updates<br />

Don’t forget to check in with us for<br />

digital updates throughout the day,<br />

and engage with us on social media.<br />

The online programme is available<br />

on programme.worldwaterweek.<br />

org and in the <strong>World</strong> <strong>Water</strong> <strong>Week</strong><br />

mobile phone app.<br />

<strong>World</strong> <strong>Water</strong> <strong>Week</strong> @siwi_water<br />

in Stockholm<br />

Stockholm International<br />

<strong>Water</strong> Institute (SIWI)<br />

@siwi_water<br />

Stockholm<br />

International<br />

<strong>Water</strong> Institute<br />

<strong>World</strong><br />

<strong>Water</strong><strong>Week</strong><br />

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STOCKHOLM INTERNATIONAL WATER INSTITUTE | Box 101 87 | Visiting Address: Linnégatan 87A | SE-100 55 | Stockholm, Sweden<br />

Tel: +46 8 121 360 00 | www.siwi.org | Publisher: Torgny Holmgren | SIWI Editorial Staff | Editor: Victoria Engstrand-Neacsu<br />

Graphic Designer: Elin Ingblom | <strong>World</strong> <strong>Water</strong> <strong>Week</strong> <strong>Daily</strong> Editorial Staff | Görrel Espelund, Andeas Karlsson and Nick<br />

Chipperfield | Photography: Thomas Henrikson and Nayereh Rajabi<br />

stockholm waterfront daily • 28 AUGUST - 2 SEPTEMBER, <strong>2016</strong> • CIRCULATION: 700

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