10th WORLD WATER FORUM KICK-OFF MEETING AND THE 82nd WORLD WATER COUNCIL BOARD OF GOVERNORS’ MEETING
The 10th WWF Kick-off meeting took place in Jakarta, Indonesia on 15-16 February 2023. The meeting, which brought together 1400 representatives of governments, international organizations, research institutions and academia, civil society and youth, was co-organized by the Indonesian Government and the World Water Council.
At the Opening Ceremony of the meeting, the Government of Indonesia, the World Water Council and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) signed a memorandum of understanding or letter of intent on cooperation in holding the 10th World Water Forum.
The 10th WWF will be held in Bali on 18-24 March 2024. The theme – water for shared prosperity. The idea is to manage water together with the aim of prosperity for all through: integrated management, continuous innovation, latest technologies, active participation of all stakeholders, sharing of interests, and incorporation of local wisdom. The 10th Forum will not be an ordinary event but a platform to engage all stakeholders as early as since the process of preparation to the Forum. This would result in collective actions for response, based on common understanding of shared prosperity.
The 10th edition of WWF will consist of political, thematic and regional processes that will supplement each other.
Given Forum will focus on political segment to shift from declarations and statements of the previous Fora to political commitments. Objectives of the political process are to facilitate better understanding of water cross sectoral dimension of political decisions, catalyze interaction between all levels of decision-making actors on the importance of water issues, bring more political commitment that can lead to action on the ground and support practical solutions to water challenges. As a result, it is expected to create a long lasting platform for political dialogue for water. Political process is to be enriched by technical content generated in the thematic process. The thematic process, which is to ensure shift from debate to action, will focus on 6 proposed themes: water for humans and nature; water security and prosperity; disaster risk reduction and management; cooperation and hydro-diplomacy; knowledge and innovations, on which 5-6 topics will be elaborated to form Forum’s thematic sessions.
The second day of the Kick-off meeting was devoted to discussions on the above themes and representative of SIC ICWC, Oygul Usmanova took part in the breakout session on cooperation and hydro-diplomacy. While briefly speaking on the main challenges of the Central Asia region she underlined a need to clearly defined mechanisms of transboundary water cooperation, including economic mechanisms, and the importance of building trust among all parties, also through open data and information exchange.
During the kick-off meeting, the Mentimeter interactive platform (menti.com) was used also to give voice to every stakeholder on the Forum’s theme, main topics and key words among which priorities were selected.
The 82nd WWC Board meeting was held on 17-18 February. The new Board of Governors, where SIC ICWC was elected during the WWC General Assembly in December 2022, was presented during the meeting, and issues on the agenda were addressed and discussed by the Board's members. The second day included visits to the forthcoming Forum’s infrastructure and the traditional water management system in Bali – subak - enlisted as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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