2015 World Water Week

23 – 28 August 2015. Stockholm, Sweden. World Water Week in Stockholm is the annual focal point for the globe’s water issues. It is organized by SIWI. This year is the jubilee year for both the Week and the Stockholm Water Prize. The theme is Water for Development. Experts, practitioners, decision-makers, business innovators and young professionals from a range of sectors and countries come to Stockholm to network, exchange ideas, foster new thinking and develop solutions to the most pressing water-related challenges of today.

Extracts:

23/08 Small Farms, Big Opportunities- Pioneering Corporations and Drip Irrigation
Affordable drip irrigation allows smallholders to improve food security, reduce poverty and increase water productivity. Why has business-as-usual failed to bring drip to smallholder farmers? And how are current challenges to scaling-up being overcome?

• Unlocking Base-of-the-Pyramid Markets for Drip Irrigation : Tim Prewitt, CEO, iDE + Urs Heierli, Advisor, iDE

23/08 Agricultural water productivity; Can it be monitored?

The FAO is developing a publicly accessible near real time database using satellite data that will allow monitoring of agricultural water productivity.

• Implementation of concrete examples of water productivity monitoring in Irrigated areas and rainfed maize production, South Africa, Andre Roux, Department of Agriculture South Africa

23/08 Impact of subsidies on efficient water technology uptake within agriculture

• “The relevance of subsidies to promote efficient irrigation technologies to World Bank Group’s operations. Specific programmatic example of the Sahel Irrigation Initiative.” 
• Rwanda: “Promotion of efficient irrigation technologies in Rwanda and prospects for scalability in the region” Richard Colback, International Finance Corporation, the World Bank Group
• Morocco: “The use of subsidies for solar energy and efficient irrigation technologies in Morocco” (based on report by H. Serghini, R. Telleria, A. Singhabhandhu, A. Laamari and A. Aw-Hassan) Aden Aw-Hassan, International Center for Agriculture Research in the Dry Areas

23/08 Towards economically viable and socially just dams in West Africa

Sélingué dam in Mali.

• Niger: a local fund to share the benefits of the Kandadji dam
• Obtaining the consent of affected groups: the example of Kandadji in Niger
• Dams in Guinea: proposals for achieving local development
• For smallholders and dams, one size doesn't fit all

24/08 Water for Food Security and Nutrition.
This event provided an opportunity for participants to be informed about the findings and recommendations from the High Level Panel of Experts for Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) report: ‘Water for Food Security and Nutrition’. HLPE is the science-policy interface of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS). HLPE reports provide a basis for multi-stakeholder debates in the CFS. Comments to the report will be provided from representatives of: private sector, civil society, CFS member countries, WLE-CGIAR, SIWI, and a perspective on implementation from FAO.

• “Water, Food Security and Human Dignity"
• High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE)
• AN IMPLEMENTATION PERSPECTIVE
• Towards Water Smart Agriculture
• CFS HLPE website
• Water for food security and nutrition – HLPE preliminary findings denote water governance failures
• SIANI website
• “Water, Food Security and Human Dignity – A Nutrition Perspective”

25/08 Africa Focus: Investments in agricultural lands vs water security

26/08 Landscape approaches for sustainable development, water and land resource management
This seminar provided a platform for discussion on how a holistic landscape approach can be taken when managing land AND water resources jointly to support and serve developing communities.

• Gertrude Ngabirano, Project Manager Kagera River Basin Management Project, Rwanda
• Anders Malmer, Head of SLU Global, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
• Sylvester Mpandeli, Agricultural Research Council-Institute for Soil, Climate and Water

27/08 EU Water Initiative Multistakeholder Forum
The EU Water Initiative (EUWI) is working to reinforce political commitment to the water agenda, to create a strong and integrated framework for EU action, and is active in regional components : Africa, Eastern Europe Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA), Latin America, the Mediterranean and the China-EU Water Platform.