Welcome to the SIWI blog
Alpine Landscape - Valley with Creek, Mountain Range in Baclground. Many nice Lens Flares. As a knowledge institution it is our primary role to generate and promote solutions and tools. As a water institution, those tools are carefully created to enhance water wise decisions for sustainable development. To do this we act as a platform for knowledge-sharing and networking amongst scientists, businesses, policy makers and civil society actors.
Today, I am pleased to say that SIWI knowledge has today obtained another sharing outlet – this blog.
We will be regularly sharing our work in an informal, lively and real time fashion. The blog will host opinions, commentary, photos and videos from our growing team at SIWI as we deliver collaborative projects to solve water issues around the globe.
2013 has much we are proud of and we have created a few archived posts, so you can explore a few of our activities related to the Stockholm Statement and Budapest Water Summit, UNFCCC proceedings and Mekong Workshops. But keep tuned as we post new updates and content from the wide range of activities underway for 2014 and onwards.
Winds of Change
We have grown exponentially during 2013 and now consist of 65 full time staff members. New projects are developing fast and include the establishment of a new UNESCO International Centre for Water Cooperation, housed at SIWI, the extension of our Policy Cluster Groups at Swedish Water House as well reinvestment in our Indian textile initiative, SWAR, in collaboration with Swedish fashion brands Indiska, KappAhl and Lindex.
We look forward to the annual World Water Day (WWD) celebrations on 21 March, this year tackling the water and energy connection. SIWI will be involved a series of activities on and offline, so be sure to follow us here or @SIWI_Media for updates. I will be taking part in the UN celebrations in Tokyo on World Water Day announcing the prestigious 2014 Stockholm Water Prize. We will blog on the proceedings, and look forward to following your WWD activities on both social media and in the ‘real’ world.
In the first week of September, we will host the World Water Week in Stockholm and will further explore the energy and water connection. The Week will cover everything on the discussion table around energy and water links. We will for instance explore the realities behind the media headlines on fracking, whilst engaging with all actors from the energy community. We look forward to welcoming you here.
All this growing activity has meant that we have outgrown our current offices at Drottninggatan 33 and will soon be moving. From the first of April will be housed in our new office at Linnégatan 87 A in central Stockholm. We will sit as neighbours with other major sustainable development groups such as Stockholm Environment Institute and Global Water Partnership and continue our long history of collaboration. We warmly invite you to visit us at our new premises this spring!
So with this first blog post, I invite you to stay-tuned and connected with us as we all collaboratively champion the sharing knowledge to realise a water wise world.
In the famous words of Henry Ford, ‘If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.’ I look forward to continued work with you all in this pursuit.
Torgny Holmgren
