Participants were informed on the WGI’s Strategy and Activities that were updated following the Satisfaction Survey[2] and the Strategic Paper[3] launched in May 2015, as well as on the establishment of two Working Groups, on Water Governance Best Practices and on Water Governance Indicators. The two Working Groups were the focus of the meeting second day’s two breakout sessions, with each of them involving brainstorming in 6 parallel roundtables.
Moreover, participants were presented with two recent United Nations processes that could raise the profile of water governance in the Global Agenda: the Habitat III process regarding sustainable development in cities, towns and other human settlements - also known as the New Urban Agenda - and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change - especially the Paris Pact on Water Initiative already signed by 94 countries and 348 organizations.
Participants also discussed the implementation of water-related goals in the 2030 Agenda. The OECD’s Action Plan on the SDGs acknowledged in the resolutions of the recent OECD Ministerial Council (Paris, 1-2 June 2016) was presented. There was also a presentation on the joint UN - World Bank High-Level Panel on Water launched in January 2016, aiming to more effective action towards an accelerated implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 6 and its related targets.
Finally, participants discussed and reviewed OECD’s draft report “Applying the OECD Principles on Water Governance to the Case of Floods” and were also briefed on recent and forthcoming water governance-related events, research, projects and publications.
More information and meeting documents are available here.