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Featured articles:

• A Last Ditch Effort to Save the Jordan River by Mr. Rami Abdelrahman and Dr. Anders Jägerskog
  
• Development Under Water Duress by Ms. Chibesa Pensulo
• Water in the Post-2015 Development Agenda by Ms. Maya Rebermark
• Exploring Water Cooperation on World Water Day by Ms. Lovisa Selander
• Top Ten Reasons to Attend the 2013 World Water Week in Stockholm by Ms. Sanna Gustafsson

The global dialogue, World We Want 2015, comprises of several UN-led processes which aim to help define the global development framework to succeed the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) after 2015. Alongside UN-Water and UNDESA, the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF ) co-led the Thematic Consultation on Water. Stockholm Water Front talks to Ms. Cecilia Scharp, Senior Advisor on Water and Sanitation at UNICEF, who shares her hopes for the future Post-2015 development agenda.

Our blue planet is at a most interesting crossroad. Water challenges continue to grow more pressing as demand for finite resources escalates due to both population and economic growth. The requirements to produce more
food and energy, as well as the variability of water availability, are putting our water resources under significant stress. Demand from manufacturing industries is projected to quadruple to 2050, and water use by both thermal electricity generation and households is set to more than double.

Today, 783 million people around the world still do not have access to clean water and almost 2.5 billion live without adequate sanitation. On all fronts, more needs to be done to create a world where the human right to clean water and sanitation is fulfilled for all people. But there are many reasons for optimism. Attention to water issues is rising as a social, political, and development priority. The international community is now discussing the creation of new wise ambitions that will support the movement towards a sustainable and desirable world for all – the so called Post-2015 Development Agenda.

In this issue, Stockholm Water Front had the opportunity to hear the thoughts from those deeply engaged in this process who explain why a ‘water goal’ is something we should aim for. During the International Year of Water
Cooperation, we do see more collaboration emerging between governments, the private sector, academia and civil society. As you can read about here, this is especially important, but can also be exceptionally challenging,
in water stressed regions like the Lower Jordan River.

We also hope to contribute to improved cooperation and more concrete outcomes through the World Water Week on the same theme. In case you haven’t booked your tickets to Stockholm already, we offer our top ten reasons why we think your trip will be worth it. We look forward to seeing you in Stockholm!

The aim of the water consultations is to facilitate discussions from a broad range of stakeholders to review progress on the MDGs, kick-start consensus building around key future challenges in water and the need to address water in the post-2015 development agenda. The consultations will cover three thematic sub-consultations “Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)”, “Water Resources Management” and “Wastewater Management and Water Quality”.

Read more about the session here:

• EUWI’s website
• AMCOW’s website

The water consultation is divided into two interactive phases: Phase I is the global water consultation, which focuses on broad challenges to trigger engagement and discussion. The global consultation will remain online and active for the whole duration of the consultation.

Phase II focuses on thematic sub-consultations broadly in the areas of:

• Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH)
• Water resources
• Wastewater management and water quality

Phase II starts in mid-January and runs up to March 3rd 2013. In March, the outcome from the different discussions will be summarised into policy recommendations in a final report that will be transmitted to the High-level Panel on Post-2015 appointed by the UN Secretary General at the end of March.

SIWI is engaged in the Thematic Consultation on Water and encourages everyone to take the opportunity to share your insights and opinions on a new global water goal in the post-2015 development agenda.

See below for the guidelines how to get involved in the discussions.

Engage in the online discussion!

To engage in the water consultation online, visit: www.worldwewant2015.org/water

You can also participate through social media, on Twitter using the hashtag #waterpost2015 or visit the Facebook page WaterPost2015.

Guidelines on how to get engaged – Water in the post-2015 development agenda

How to engage
The Thematic Consultation on Water is part of the UN-system led “global dialogue” comprising around 100 Country Consultations and 11 global Thematic Consultations including one on water. The water consultation is mainly taking place as an on-line web-based discussion using different social media. The purpose is to bring in voices from a broad range of stakeholders to build a consensus around key future challenges in water and the need for a new global water goal in the post-2015 development agenda.
The web-based consultation will consist of two broad parts; the general global dialogue on water, and the sub-consultations with focus on particular sub-sets of water. The consultation is co-led by UN-Water, UNDESA and UNICEF. UNICEF is responsible for designing and managing the water web-page, and has a web designer/manager based in New York (Robert Kerins, e-mail rkerins@unicef.org). An on-line engagement specialist will be soon incorporated to the working team and will work closely with the web-manager and on all sub-consultations.

General Global Dialogue on water (November 2012 – March 2013)
The objective is to host a consultation focusing broadly on water, aiming to attract a wide array of participants to discuss water from different perspectives. There are different ways to engage:
• Comment: interact and comment directly on the webpage www.worldwewant2015.org/water. We encourage you to register so we are able to follow some key feature of who has taken part in the consultation.
• Twitter: Tweet news; state your views on Twitter. Twitter account@WaterPost2015 has been created; we encourage you to use the hashtag#waterpost2015.
• Facebook: read news, post news, state you views. Facebook group WaterPost2015 has been created.
• Water-2015 related news: suggest current news and developments related to water and the post-2015 development agenda, the SDG process, cover events and more on the webpage.
• Quiz and questions: participating in quiz or polls on pertinent water challenges to raise awareness.
• Videos/YouTube clips: suggest existing water related videos/YouTube clips to inform or inspire discussions (professional or amateur videos) or provide a new one.
• Links to other sources and web-pages: suggest links to other relevant sources and web-pages, blogs and similar that can create awareness about the water consultation or for reach out.

Sub-consultations (January – February 2013)
This part of the water consultation will focus on identified key challenges for the future water agenda and is looking for a broad participation of stakeholders engaged in water issues. These discussions will be moderated and kicked off by an eminent person posing some urgent questions to be discussed on-line. There will be various means of interaction by the public, primarily through posting direct comments on the web-page, by twitter or the Facebook page.

Other means of engagement
Several global, regional and national meetings/events are taking place independently of the post-2015 process, which are of high relevance for the consultation. In these meetings awareness about the water consultation can be raised and participants can also take active part in the discussions, for example feeding in to the news section of the web-page and reporting on outcomes of deliberations via blogging and twitter. During the meetings interviews can be recorded asking questions to participants on priorities and challenges for the new post-2015 development framework and what would be the best possible outcome. Through these meetings recommendations or questions can also be directed to the water consultation for discussion.