Stockholm WaterFront no 2, 2019
Everybody needs water and therefore everybody should have a say in decisions about water. In theory, it’s as simple as that. In real life, however, we know that access to clean water is distributed very unequally, that the poor tend to be hardest hit by disasters and that marginalized groups seldom can influence important water decisions.
We also know that the gaps between the rich and the poor are likely to grow in coming years, exacerbated by the climate crisis, degraded ecosystems and increasingly extreme and unpredictable weather patterns.
But we’re not doomed to follow that track. In this issue of WaterFront we focus on the important topic of inclusion, as expressed in this year’s World Water Week’s theme Water for Society – including all.
On page 4, we talk to leading experts about what it really means to leave no one behind, the promise of the 2030 Agenda. We have visited an informal settlement in Kenya to learn what residents there find most important, read the report on page 6. In the Mekong region public consultations were meant to give local residents a say in dam development but the process has left many disappointed, learn more on page 14. On page 16 we focus on the difficult situation for migrants. And for insights into why women should play a bigger role in water diplomacy, turn to page 20.
Enjoy the read!
