UNESCO Webinar: Policy Briefs on Partnership and Cooperation Enhancement in Water Management in Asia-Pacific, 23 March 2023
15 March 2023, Bangkok – UNESCO in partnership with the Office of National Water Resources (ONWR), Thailand, and the Faculty of Engineering of Chulalongkorn University, will host the webinar, ‘Policy Briefs on Partnership and Cooperation Enhancement in Water Management in Asia-Pacific’, on 23 March. This webinar aims to present PPP concept and roles, actual case studies in Asia-Pacific countries, policy support on partnership and cooperation enhancement in water management, and future possible collaborations to reach Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6) on the occasion of World Water Day 2023, and in line with the UN World Water Development Report 2023 (UN-WWDR2023).
A major factor in being able to achieve SDG6 – ‘ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all’ – will be the capacity of the world’s organizations and research institutions both within and outside of the water community to come together in partnerships and cooperation to accelerate progress.
Acceleration of change will require innovation, and while successful formulas for partnership exist and can be improved upon, new methods should also be considered. Different ways of engaging with South-South and North-South cooperation, with the private sector, with local communities and the public-at-large, with collaboration around science in gathering and sharing data, and with holders of traditional knowledge, can offer new solutions to achieving water- and sanitation-related goals, both regionally and globally. Various kinds of partnership, especially multistakeholder ones, need to understand and be mindful of the context in which they are designed and implemented, helping to ensure a level playing field.
Utilizing networks and platforms, bringing together lessons learned and best practices, partnerships can harness their cumulative reach to disseminate knowledge, information, and data beyond what any single entity might accomplish on its own. This has the potential to increase public awareness at the local and national levels, and extend beyond the traditional water management and supply and sanitation communities into other sectors and policy domains, and engage a different set of stakeholders that may not have water and sanitation at the center of their priorities.
The planned policy briefs on Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) for water management, which is a collaboration between UNESCO, ONWR and Chulalongkorn University, will focus in this webinar on examining how building partnerships and enhancing cooperation are essential for the Asia-Pacific region if it is to reach its goals for water management in the broader sustainable development context.
Date and Time: 23 March 2023, 14.00 – 17.30 Bangkok (GMT+7)
Format: Zoom Webinar
Click here for registration link (contains Programme Agenda)
For further information: Mr Ahmed Fahmi, Chief of Unit and Programme Specialist, Natural Sciences, UNESCO Bangkok: a.fahmi(at)unesco.org
Media Queries: Mr Gregory Galligan, Public Information and Outreach Team (PIO), UNESCO Bangkok: g.galligan(at)unesco.org
Main photo credit: Chulalongkorn University/Nattanon Sangaroon
