World Water Week to be held online in 2021
World Water Week 2021 will take place 23-27 August under the theme Building Resilience Faster. It will be held entirely online, in a new, digital format designed to ensure that people across the world can collaborate to find solutions to the world’s greatest water-related challenges.
The world is changing and so are we. World Water Week 2021 will have a new, digital format to meet people where they are – both physically and mentally – and find better ways to bring about the transformation we all know is desperately needed. “Given the ongoing global pandemic, this was a natural decision. No one knows what the world will look like in August 2021, but one thing you can count on – World Water Week is happening, no matter what. For us, it is important to be able to promise that,” says Torgny Holmgren, Executive Director of Stockholm International Water Institute.
SIWI is now busy designing the event to be a state-of-the-art digital experience that creates maximum value for participants and convening organizations. A digital Week offers definite advantages: it puts participation within reach also for groups who cannot travel internationally and ensures that as many voices as possible can be heard. This fosters international cooperation at a time when it is needed more than ever. The digital format also enhances learning as the content produced can be revisited and reused all year round.
World Water Week 2021 will be held under the theme Building Resilience Faster, with a focus on finding concrete solutions to the world’s greatest water-related challenges, starting with the climate crisis and including water scarcity, food security, health, biodiversity, and impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“As organizers of the leading event on water, we have a special responsibility to create a meeting place for people to collaborate and learn, to fast-track real change. The new, digital World Water Week will be designed to make it easy to convene events that are solutions-focused and cater to many different kinds of participants with an interest in sustainability and water,” explains Henrika Thomasson, SIWI’s Communications Director.
Henrika Thomasson will oversee the digital transformation of World Water Week and co-lead the 2021 event together with Gabriela Suhoschi, Director World Water Week & Prizes.
“It is very exciting for us to seize the new opportunities that come with a digital transition, while also building on the network and expertise we have developed over 30 years. With this, I think World Water Week 2021 will be able to influence global decisions on development, protection of the natural world and how to address the climate crisis,” Gabriela Suhoschi says.
In the future, World Water Week aims to merge the digital delivery with face-to-face meetings for an even bigger and more impactful World Water Week.
