3rd World Water Forum – A Webliography

Forum Resources

Third World Water Forum – March 16-23, 2003, Japan

The Forum web site has an extensive list of links and information. Just a few of the themes include: Day of Africa; Water and Climate; Water, Sanitation and Hygiene; Gender; etc. 

United Nations – The World Water Development Report

WWDR is a periodic, comprehensive review giving an authoritative picture of the state of the world’s freshwater resources, and aiming to provide decision-makers with the tools for sustainable use of our water. Coordinated by the World Water Assessment Programme, the Report is the result of the collaboration of twenty-three UN agencies and convention secretariats and lays the foundations for regular, system-wide monitoring and reporting by the UN, together with development of standardized methodologies and data.

World Water Day, March 22, 2003

Water for the Future is the theme for World Water Day 2003. It calls on each one of us to maintain and improve the quality and quantity of fresh water available to future generations and to achieve the Millennium Development Goal to halve, by 2015, the number of people living without safe drinking water and basic sanitation.

World Water Council – World Panel on Financing Water Infrastructure

This 64 page report provides a status report on water and sanitation infrastructure and proposals for water governance and sector reform. One annex discusses the African Development Bank’s rural water supply and sanitation initiative. 

Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) – Kyoto: the agenda has changed  

A position paper from the WSSCC outlining how and where change is required in order to achieve the WSSD goals.  Focusing on inter alia issues of governance, financing, monitoring, the paper challenges the community at Kyoto to bring about change and offers practical steps of how others can get involved in proactively changing the agenda

United Nations –International Year of Freshwater  

The United Nations General Assembly in resolution 55/196 proclaimed the year 2003 as the International Year of Freshwater.  The resolution adopted on 20 December 2000, was initiated by the Government of Tajikistan and supported by 148 other countries. It encourages Governments, the United Nations system and all other actors to take advantage of the Year to increase awareness of the importance of sustainable freshwater use, management and protection. The Year will be used as a platform for promoting existing activities and spearheading new initiatives in water resources at the international, regional and national levels. The International Year of Freshwater is expected to follow up on agreements reached at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg September 2002).

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) – Webcast of the Third World Water Forum from Japan (March 16 to 23, 2003).

Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) will webcast worldwide selected sessions of the Forum with a focus on the initiatives that engage local users in water management. IDRC will showcase sessions addressing a wide variety of crucial themes including: water and governance; water and cultural diversity; groundwater management needs in developing countries; water in cities; water, food and environment; the challenges of wastewater agriculture; etc. IDRC also pays particular attention to the Day of Africa, and the Day of the Middle East and the Mediterranean where IDRC’s work to promote water demand management strategies in the region will be presented.  IDRC has been supporting research on water for the last three decades.  

Other Useful Resources

Pacific Institute – World Water: Information on the World’s Freshwater Resources

The World’s Water, is a very useful web site dedicated to providing up-to-date water information, data, and web connections to organizations, institutions, and individuals working on a wide range of global freshwater problems and solutions.

World Bank – Water Week, March 4-6, 2003 

Water Week 2003 will take place from Tuesday 4 to Thursday 6 March 2003 in Washington DC. The theme of Water Week 2003 is “Water & Development”. 

Water-related investments constitute about a sixth of the Bank’s overall portfolio. The three-day event will bring together the World Bank Group’s water community and external participants, including clients, international and donor organizations, NGOs, and private sector representatives. Presentations from the meeting should be on the web site in the near future.