World Water Week

World Water Week is an annual event in Stockholm, Sweden. The organizer and host, the Stockholm International Water Institute, describes it as the leading annual global meeting place for capacity-building, partnership-building and follow-up on the implementation of international processes and programmes in water and development." World Water Week 2009 ran from August 16 to 22 with the theme "Accessing Water for the Common Good." It marked the first of a three-year-long World Water Week focus on "Water: Responding to Global Change." World Water Week 2010 is scheduled for September 5 to 11 with the theme "The Water Quality Challenge - Prevention, Wise Use and Abatement".

Sponsors and criticism
The sponsors of the 2009 World Water Week include Nestle, Black & Veatch, FEMSA Foundation and Sweco.

"In 2007, the organisers of World Water Week faced heavy criticism and protest actions for allowing Nestle to sponsor the conference and for serving bottled water to the participants," wrote activist Olivier Hoedeman. In 2008, "the organisers have skipped the bottled water, but Nestle again features as the prime sponsor of the event. Swedish public television STV earlier this week reported on the controversy around Nestle's sponsorship, featuring an interview with America Vera Zavala of ATTAC Sweden. Zavala asks how the organisers of World Water Week could allow a corporation with such a problematic record and such clear interests in expanding unsustainable bottled water consumption to sponsor the conference." World Water Week's Anders Berntell responded by arguing "it is better to communicate with large firms than to exclude them."

Water and climate change
The statement released at the end of World Water Week 2009 emphasized the inter-relation of water management and climate change issues, looking forward to the COP15 meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in December 2009 in Denmark. "The importance of water must be properly and adequately reflected within the COP-15 agreement, and in processes beyond COP-15," read the World Water Week statement. "Water is a key medium through which climate change impacts will be felt." The statement also stressed the importance of water resources to efforts to adapt to a changing climate, and called for "an initial mobilization of finance to assist vulnerable, low income countries already affected by climate change, followed by the establishment of a well-resourced mechanism for funding adaptation as part of ongoing climate negotiations."

Contact information
Website: worldwaterweek.org

Related SourceWatch articles

 * BP
 * Central Arizona Project
 * CEO Water Mandate
 * Christine Todd Whitman
 * GE Water
 * Global Water Challenge
 * Global Water Futures
 * Hunton & Williams
 * Kathy Robb
 * Maude Barlow
 * Nestle
 * Stockholm International Water Institute
 * Water Policy Institute
 * Whitman Strategy Group

External resources

 * "Water justice reports from World Water Week: Civil society campaigners, trade unionists and public water managers report from World Water Week, Stockholm," with coverage of the 2007 and 2008 gatherings.

External articles

 * Anil Naidoo and Lasse Karlsson, "Water = politics," The Transnational Institute, August 17, 2007.
 * Brian Richter, Opinion: "Water policies suffer sinking feeling," BBC News, August 8, 2009.
 * "Climate change fuels water issues," UPI, August 17, 2009.
 * Press release, "New Global Public Opinion Survey Finds Water Issues Are the Top Environmental Concern Worldwide," Molson Coors, Circle of Blue and GlobeScan via PRNewswire, August 18, 2009.
 * General Electric, "Diving into access and scarcity at World Water Week," Reliable Plant magazine, August 19, 2009.
 * Bjorn Von Euler (Director of Corporate Philanthropy, ITT Corp), "Business Must Tie Water to Climate Change," Environmental Leader, August 19, 2009.
 * "World Water Week Statement Builds Bridge to Climate Talks," Environment News Service (ENS), August 21, 2009.
 * Diane Farsetta, "Water: The Newest Wave of Corporate 'Social Responsibility'," PR Watch, September 1, 2009.