Session convener: CEO Water Mandate
Session partners: IRC and GWOPA/UN-Habitat
Session chair: Jason Morrison. Technical Director of the CEO Water Mandate of the UN Global Compact

>> Video recording of session

This session focuses on tools, instruments and programs to address the water-related challenges issues that cities are facing. Cooperation is particularly important where there are a lot of actors and interests in the same place. Nowhere is this more the case than in cities. It is the dense complexity of actors and activities in cities that makes water management there so challenging, and at the same time which allows cities to offer up so many of the exciting solutions.

It’s also important to focus on cities simply because they dominate our world. We are an urban planet and becoming more so daily.  The majority of our human and economic exchanges happen in cities and this is where we can have the most acute influence on our sustainable future.

Stakeholder engagement and public participation are key to the coordination of various actors and interests in cities. Stakeholder platforms can bring together urban planners, water service providers, consultants and civil society organizations in stakeholder platforms, to develop dynamic integrated approaches. In stakeholder platforms a variety of stakeholders have the space to articulate their concerns and then come to negotiated settlements. Stakeholder platforms can exist at all levels of water management, from the local to the transboundary level.

>> Background document for this session: Water cooperation in cities. IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, The Hague, the Netherlands

Date: Wednesday, 9 January 2013

14:00-14:45 Presentation of the Session

14:45-16:00 Cities
Key note speech: Water cooperation in cities
Case presentation: Zaragoza, 7 initiatives on water cooperation

16:00-17:15 Companies
Keynote speech: Business Water Risk, Policy Engagement, and Collective Action
Case presentation: Every Drop Matters initiative (UNDP and Coca-Cola)

17:15-18:30 Water operators
Keynote speech
Case presentation:  Water operators: The Global Water Operators' Partnerships Alliance (GWOPA)

18:30-19:00 Wrap up and take away lessons

>> Please have a look to the agenda for more details on this session