SIWI highlights key water governance issues at the 8th World Water Forum

The World Water Forum is organized by the World Water Council (WWC) and held every three years. The Forum contributes to the dialogue of the decision-making process on water at the global level, seeking to achieve rational and sustainable use. In its 8^th edition, the Forum takes place in Brasilia 18-23 March 2018 and focuses on the theme Sharing Water.

SIWI is involved in several events at the Forum, highlighting a wide range of issues including: source-to-sea management, climate change and water, the role of forests in water management, and water as a human right.

Two areas of particular focus for SIWI are source-to-sea management and the interconnection of forest and water management.

Source-to-sea at the 8^th World Water Forum

The Action Platform for Source-to-Sea Management (S2S Platform), hosted by SIWI, has organized the first ever high-level panel on source-to-sea management at a World Water Forum. In the panel, UN Special Envoy for Oceans, Peter Thomson, ministers from four countries, and representatives from private companies, financing institutions and inter-governmental bodies, will discuss how to solidify the connections between decision-makers who focus on marine and freshwater issues. Key messages of the panel include:

• Management arrangements in the source-to-sea continuum are often fragmented, with challenges to address the full scope of upstream-downstream linkages. Given the interconnectedness of water resources, it is important to design efforts to achieve SDG 6 so that they benefit also marine ecosystems and the people dependent on them.
• The freshwater community has an important role in making sure sufficient amounts of good quality water reaches the sea.

Forest and water relationships

At the Forum, SIWI is also emphasizing the vital connection between forest and water management. Together with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), SIWI will release a statement urging for a deeper integration of forest and water issues. Key messages of the statement include:

• To achieve SDG15, life on land, water and food security should be at the heart of forest management and the restoration of multi-functional landscapes. Similarly, water management should incorporate appropriate forest management as a natural infrastructure solution to achieve SDG 6.
• Landscape restoration and forest activities should more centrally include water impacts and opportunities to better contribute to a range of the sustainable development goals.

The full statement and related workshop report will be released here on 21 March 2018, 19.30 CET.