UN-Water Annual Conference // "Partnerships for improving water and energy access, efficiency and sustainability", Zaragoza/Spain

The conference will focus on partnerships improving water and energy access, efficiency and sustainability and will try to draw lessons on what the factors that make successful partnerships in water and energy are, the role of different actors and how to scale up partnerships. The UN-Water Annual Zaragoza Conferences serve UN-Water to prepare for World Water Day. This conference is part of the road map for World Water Day 2014 focused on the nexus of water and energy. A focused dialogue would already be initiated with the UN-Water seminar on the same topic during World Water Week in Stockholm. Water and energy (W&E) are closely interlinked and interdependent. W&E inter-linkages have an important role in the post-2015 development agenda and the conceptualization of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). There are indeed some main challenges, interconnections and opportunities for realizing synergies and benefits from joint responses on the water and energy nexus, including for the design of climate resilience and green economies. Partnerships amongst institutions, agencies and stakeholders can help in achieving some of these benefits. The Zaragoza Conference will reach beyond the "water for energy" and/or "energy for water" concept focusing on a more practical examination of how tools and partnerships help developing appropriate joint responses and what are the measures for managing trade-offs, identifying synergies, and maximizing co-benefits. Discussions will center on how partnerships can help implement responses to achieve W&E efficiency, secured access and sustainability.

Conference Objectives The UN-Water Conference aims to contribute to two of the objectives of World Water Day 2014. These are: -Demonstrate, through case studies, to decision makers in the energy sector and the water domain that integrated approaches and solutions to water-energy issues can achieve greater economic and social impacts; -Identify key stakeholders in the water-energy nexus and actively engage them in further developing the water-energy linkages. The Conference will do so by: -Analyzing and evaluating the existing partnership experience; -Providing a platform for exchange of experiences of effective partnerships; -Drawing conclusions on lessons from existing experience and the way forward for effective partnerships to achieve water/energy security; -Providing a space to promote and enable new partnerships. The Conference will take place in Zaragoza, Spain, from 13 to 16 January 2014.

Link

{http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/pdf/flyer_zaragoza2014_conference_eng.pdf|Conference Flyer}

Contact

To register for the technical visits please contact {garcessolano@un.org|Mónica Garcés}.