Explained | What is World Water Week?

World Water Week, the biggest water conference of the year, is being held in Stockholm, Sweden.

 

What is World Water Week?

• World Water Week is the leading conference on global water issues, held every year since 1991. 

• World Water Week is held the last week of August every year and was initially part of Stockholm Water Festival, which celebrated that the Swedish capital had managed to reach its goal of having some of the cleanest water in the world.

• The Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) is the organiser of World Water Week and curates all the content.

• A non-profit event, co-created with leading organisations, World Water Week attracts a diverse mix of participants from many professional backgrounds.

 

Highlights of 2023 World Water Week 

• This is an annual gathering of thousands of organisations and individuals, which include government experts, UN officials, scientists and academics, who come together to rethink how water is being managed.

• These meetings are related to the overall theme of the 2023 World Water Week, under the banner, ‘Seeds of Change: Innovative Solutions for a Water-wise World’.

• President of the General Assembly Csaba Kőrösi has proposed five solutions to the water crisis. It includes building a water cooperation platform among all 193 UN Member States (the representatives that sit in the General Assembly), and the creation of a UN-wide water strategy, headed by a UN Special Envoy on Water.

• These ideas were part of the outcome of the UN Water Conference held in New York in March 2023. World Water Week is being framed as a continuation of what was agreed in March and could be a kickstart to some of the promised commitments, the so-called Water Action Agenda.

• The Stockholm Water Prize, which is described as the Nobel Prize of water, will be presented on August 23. It will be awarded in the same hall as the iconic Nobel Prize awards. The Prize is awarded by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) in cooperation with the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

• Andrea Rinaldo is named Stockholm Water Prize Laureate 2023 for groundbreaking work with a major impact on several academic fields, including hydrology, hydrogeomorphology and epidemiology.

 

Stockholm Water Prize

• The Stockholm Water Prize is the world’s most prestigious water award. 

• The Stockholm Water Prize is often described as the “Nobel Prize of water” and is characterized by a similar selection process. Since 1991, the Stockholm Water Prize has been awarded to people and organisations for extraordinary water-related achievements.

• The Prize is awarded by SIWI in cooperation with the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and presented by H.M King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, who is the official patron of the Prize.

• The winner of the Stockholm Water Prize is announced every year, usually in March in conjunction with World Water Day. 

• A royal prize ceremony is held as part of World Water Week in August, where the Laureate plays an important role.

• The Stockholm Water Prize is not part of the Nobel family.

 

Stockholm Water Prize Laureates from India

2015: Rajendra Singh for his innovative water restoration efforts, improving water security in rural India, and for showing extraordinary courage and determination in his quest to improve the living conditions for those most in need.

2009: Bindeshwar Pathak, the Founder of the Sulabh International, for his wide ranging work in the sanitation field to improve public health, advance social progress, and improve human rights in India and other countries.

2005: Centre for Science and Environment, under the directorship of Sunita Narain work, for its many publications, research and advocacy helped create new thinking on how traditional systems of water management, which use rainwater endowment, once rejuvenated could become the starting point for the removal of rural poverty in many part of the world.

1993: Madhav Atmaram Chitale has played a major role in getting India’s decision makers and strategic planners to think of water as a resource whose quality and availability need to be safeguarded.