[Assam] "Ganga Yamunaa--Nirmala Panee-"---Sing along all of you

[mc mahant]

With close to 70 seminars and nine workshops scheduled, this year's World Water Week (www.worldwaterweek.org) aims to top expectations once again. A record number of participants – 2400 from some 130 countries – are expected to explore a wide variety of exciting themes and topics at the Stockholm City Conference Centre August 12-18, 2007. The theme of this year's conference is "Progress and Prospects on Water: Striving for Sustainability in a Changing World." Plenary sessions, panel debates, social events, technical tours and prize-giving ceremonies will combine to provide the week's varied programme. Leading professionals from business, government, water management, science, inter-governmental organisations, NGOs, training institutes, United Nations agencies will participate.Among the many top experts participating are Dr. R.K. Pachauri, Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and Ms. Sunita Narain, Director, Centre for Science and Environment, India. Here are some key themes for this year's event. Climate change: With the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report having been released during the first half of 2007, and media coverage of severe floods and droughts, the issue of climate change has never been such a "hot" topic. To cover all aspects of the challenges associated with water and climate change, World Water Week is devoting an entire day to the topic, as well as additional activities during the week. Seminars will consider specific issues such as adaptation strategies that are being prepared in developed and developing countries, vulnerability mapping and opportunities for innovation. Measuring progress: Several important reports on the state of water resources and water supply and sanitation services have been published since 2005. Similarly, reviews have been conducted of progress towards achieving, by 2015¸ the Millennium Development Goal targets for water and sanitation. The same is true of the efforts to implement the Johannesburg Plan of Action for Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and Water Efficiency Plans (WEP). However, this work has raised as many questions as it has answered. A number of seminars at World Water Week will focus on this topic.Unsolved sanitation challenges: Some 2.6 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation and diarrhoeal diseases triggered by inadequate sanitation facilities and unsafe hygiene behaviour kill millions of people annually, mostly children. Improved sanitation and hygiene helps eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, promotes universal primary education, builds gender equality, reduces child mortality, improves maternal health and ensures environmental sustainability. This year's World Water Week will explore sanitation and hygiene – the "orphan child" of the water sector – in depth.Water for food and ecosystems: By 2020, world cereal demand will have increased by 40% since the late 1990s. This should be good news, except that the world only has a limited supply of water. Current production methods are unsustainable, since they involve large-scale groundwater overexploitation and widespread river depletion, which threatens biodiversity and aquatic ecosystems. The key is to find ways to produce more food using less water, and to ensure that biodiversity losses do not threaten ecosystems. Such keys will be explored in Stockholm.Investing in water: Investment in improved water resources management and water supply and sanitation is often perceived merely as a cost. This perception holds sway even when there are signs that such actions could bring considerable economic gains – gains which are required for poverty alleviation. In Stockholm, the macroeconomic perspective will be assayed. Better governance: Recognition has been growing of the vital role that good governance plays within the water sector. Indeed, it is now widely accepted by politicians around the world that governance is a critical issue which must be addressed if unsustainable development and poverty are to be tackled successfully. Focus in Stockholm will be directed towards the governance-related issues of corruption, local urban levels, the capacity for adaptation to better good governance. For more information, visit www.worldwaterweek.org.__._,_.___ 
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