Webinar // The Bonn Water Network - Addressing water as a crosscutting element of the Sustainable Development Goals
The upcoming lecture, roundtable and debate of the Bonn Water Network "Addressing water as a crosscutting element of the Sustainable Development Goals"
16 December 2020, 14:50 - 16:20 CET
Background
Sustainable Development Goal 6 on clean water and sanitation is crucial for the implementation of many other SDGs such as food security, health, education, land or energy. Across the 2030 Agenda, many goals depend on the availability of and access to water, but these interlinkages also create trade-offs and conflict potential. The Covid-19 pandemic, for instance, has shed light on existing harsh inequalities in access to safe water and resulting health risks - 2.1 billion people have no access to clean drinking water and more than 4.5 billion have no safe sanitation which considerably amplifies the risk of spreading the virus. In order to identify and address the needs of different water uses and users, researchers and policymakers need to adopt holistic approaches, but still develop pragmatic solutions to concrete governance challenges.
The newly created Bonn Water Network addresses these questions in a lecture and a panel discussion followed by an open debate with the public. The network consists of seven renowned institutions with longstanding experience on water and related issues: the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC); Bonn University with its Institute of Geography (GIUB) holding the UNESCO Chair in Human Water Systems, and the Center for Development Research (ZEF); the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE); the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and two UN institutions, the United Nations University - Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) and the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
Agenda
Dr. Annabelle Houdret (DIE), speaker of the Bonn Water Network, will present the new initiative and Dr. Srinivasa Srigiri (DIE) introduce into the topic of the lecture in his presentation “SDG 6 on ‘Clean Water and Sanitation for All’: Assessing Interlinkages, Trade-Offs and Synergies for Policy Design”. A roundtable will then bring together the expertise of the Bonn Water Network’s member institutions to discuss the topic “Water as a catalyst for the SDGs – addressing interlinkages in research and practice”. Key questions include: Which are the different needs for water that we need to take into account when implementing the SDGs? Which governance approaches are successful in dealing with water demand across sectors and scales in this process? How can science contribute to improve the understanding of these interlinkages through inter- and transdisciplinary approaches? And how do we translate this into practice and bring researchers and decision-makers together to develop and implement sustainable water solutions?
Prof. Dr. Mariele Evers (GIUB) contributes her expertise in transdisciplinary approaches in research on human-water-systems and hydrological extremes; Dr. Daniel Tsegai (UNCCD) will bring in his knowledge on water scarcity in the context of drought extremes and the connections to land rehabilitation; Dr. Birgit Kemmerling (BICC) addresses the challenges of resource-saving and cycle-oriented management of water and land resources in Morocco; Dr. Yvonne Walz (UNU-EHS) brings in her expertise on the role of water in the context of disaster risk management and climate change adaptation; Dr Luna Bharati (ZEF/ IWMI) will highlight Water-Energy-Food-Environment Nexus solutions for sustainable development in Africa and Asia; and Dr. Srinivasa Srigiri (DIE) brings in his expertise on the governance of interdependencies between water, energy and food securities in Mexico, Ethiopia and Jordan.
The event is part of the lecture series “Cooperation in water management – tackling a global challenge” organized by UNU FLORES; TU Dresden and the University of Bonn.
Registration
Please register online for the event
Further Information
- More information on the Bonn Water Network is available here: https://www.die-gdi.de/en/water-governance/
- For any questions related to the debate or to the network, please contact Dr. Annabelle Houdret: annabelle.houdret@die-gdi.de