Second meeting European Regional Process

The fifth World Water Forum will be organised from 16-22 March 2009 in Istanbul under the theme “Bridging Divides for Water”. Over the last 12 years, the World Water Fora have grown to be major events and in 2009 over 20.000 people are expected to attend again; combining politicians, businesses and NGO’s to find solutions to attain sustainable water use. More information can be found on www.worldwaterforum5.org.

The European Water Partnership, being the European Regional Coordinator for Europe, would like to invite all interested parties to attend the second meeting of the European Regional Process. Please send an email to Lucilla Minelli to receive the details for registration. More information on the European Regional Process

Goals and Programme
After the first meeting in February in Brussels which identified the themes relevant for Europe and an initial list of organisations willing to work on them, this second meeting will discuss progress within these themes and next steps to be taken to prepare the European input. Taking place in Zaragoza, it will also make sure the input of the Southern parts of Europe is taken into account in the European Regional Process. The next meeting of the ERP will be held in Eastern Europe, to enable us to address the challenges and solutions from both these regions, which have the largest water challenges in Europe.

Workshops

The programme of the meeting has been divided into a plenary session and workshops on the themes of the ERP:

• Future of Water in Europe
• Climate Change and Adaptation
• Water for Energy, Energy for Water
• Basin Management and Transboundary Cooperation
• Finance
• Sanitation  
• Water Scarcity and Droughts
• Water Science and Technologies

The goal of these workshops is to discuss the work already been executed, identify next steps to be taken as well as identify which sessions to focus on in Istanbul. The workshops will specifically aim to incorporate the Southern European input.

The Plenary session will address the European Regional Process in general, explaining the work done so far, discussing the European Regional Document as well as the European Regional Session in Istanbul and discuss any other initiatives we can undertake. We would also like to take this opportunity to identify any missing issues that we should address from a Southern perspective.

More information
A detailed programme will be available shortly. For any questions about the meeting, please contact Harro Riedstra.

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