Being held this week and organised by Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), World Water Week is the leading global conference for dialogue, collaboration, and innovation on water.
World Water Week is held every year and centres each edition around a theme selected to both set and reflect the global agenda, aligning with UN World Water Day. The Week is designed to raise awareness of the theme, advance the debate, build new consensus, and facilitate learning across sectors.
This week, Wastebuster’s Katy Newnham and POC’s Helena Mansell-Stopher will be launching Water Week at SIWI World Water Week in Stockholm.
They will both be speaking in a session titled: ‘Building the Social Infrastructure for Water Security’ at 11:00–12:30 | Wednesday 26 August | A2, Level 6 | On-site & online.
The session also includes speakers from WaterAid, The Waterubas, Water for People, British Water, and EPS Water.
Investing in people is investing in water security the panel will argue. In this session, audiences will discover a new strategic proposition for the global water community: that strengthening public understanding, civic participation and future talent can improve the performance of water infrastructure, accelerate progress towards water security and create lasting environmental, social and economic value through collective action.
Water security depends on more than infrastructure, technology and policy alone. It depends on an informed, engaged and empowered society.
While billions are being invested in engineering, innovation and water infrastructure, one of the greatest untapped opportunities for strengthening water security lies in people. Better water literacy, stronger civic participation and a new generation of skilled water professionals can help improve infrastructure performance, reduce pollution, encourage more responsible water use, strengthen resilience and maximise the environmental, social and economic value of water investment.
This session introduces a new strategic proposition for the global water community: that alongside physical infrastructure, we must also build the social infrastructure for water security.
Developed in support of the UN Water Action Decade, Water Week is an annual global engagement and impact movement, celebrated each March around UN World Water Day, designed to complement existing investment in infrastructure, policy and innovation by connecting science with society. Through education, culture, storytelling, media, citizen science and collective action, it helps children, young people and communities better understand, value and protect water while connecting them with organisations, innovations, projects, career pathways and opportunities to take action.
Through inspiring films and intergenerational storytelling, delegates will explore how Water Week reconnects society with water while creating a lasting legacy of participation, evidence, shared learning and collective action.
Beginning with a UK Blueprint Year across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland before international replication, Water Week will generate evidence and practical insights that support countries and partners to adapt proven approaches to their own priorities, cultures and communities – strengthening collaboration and accelerating progress towards a more water-secure future.
Katy Newnham, founder of Wastebuster, comments:
“Much of my work over the past 20 years has focused on how we educate, inspire and empower children and young people to understand environmental challenges and become part of the solutions. Water Week builds on that idea across generations. We invest heavily in the physical infrastructure needed for water security. But what about the social infrastructure that sits alongside it? How can we help children, young people and communities understand the water challenges where they live, connect them with the knowledge, organisations, projects and opportunities that already exist, and give them meaningful ways to participate. Tomorrow, we’ll bring together voices from across generations and sectors to explore how storytelling, education, culture, participation, industry and investment can help build that social infrastructure — locally, nationally and globally.”
Helena Mansell-Stopher, founder and CEO of Products of Change, comments:
“Water is the foundation of everything. If, as an industry, we don’t focus on its protection, there will be far-felt consequences for our future. Which is why Products of Change has partnered with Wastebuster and the United Nations to develop a programme to educate the industry on the importance of this essential resource.”
