Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Singapore International Water Week (SIWW) had to be postponed until June 2021, but to make up for the postponement, organisers decided to add a 2-day online event, SIWW Online, on 18-19 November 2020.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is holding an online series of climate dialogues from 23 November to 4 December, allowing Parties, observer States and other stakeholders to showcase progress and achievements on climate action in 2020.
The SADC Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus Governance Framework, that was developed by SADC with technical assistance from GWPSA, was approved in a joint meeting held by the Ministers responsible for Energy and Water from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on the 30th October 2020 through video conferencing, hosted by the Republic of Mozambique.
The 2020 GWP Network Meeting concluded on 22 October, with over 900 GWP Partners signed up for the virtual event and others watching the Facebook Live feed (not covered the EURASIA ses-sion). The overall theme was ‘Bringing the Change’ in the context of the GWP 2020-2025 Strategy and as the world faces a pandem-ic. The session covers the global plenary session (Opening and closing) and 3 continental sessions; Latin America and Caribbean, EURASIA, as well as Africa and the Mediterranean.
The ad-hoc Steering Committee for the Nexus activities in the Drina River Basin under the SEE Nexus Project, supported by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), had its first online meeting on 15 October 2020. Representatives from the Ministries of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia relevant to the water, energy and environment sectors, were informed about and commented on the project’s objectives and planned activities in the basin.
The 2nd International Conference on "Water, Megacities and Global Change" - also known as EauMega 2020 - takes place at UNESCO HQ in Paris, France, on 1-4 December.
World Toilet Day is a United Nations Observance on 19 November that celebrates toilets and raises awareness of the 4.2 billion people living without access to safely managed sanitation. It is about taking action to tackle the global sanitation crisis and achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6: water and sanitation. This year's theme is "Sustainable Sanitation and Climate Change".
On 27 October, Global Water Partnership and Wuhan International Water Law Academy organised an online engagement session based on the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Governance for Transboundary Freshwater Security. The topic was ‘Does the world need more International Water Law?’ The event attracted approximately 100 participants. “One of the most encouraging feedback was a participant who realized ‘we don’t need to be lawyers to work with international water law.’ We tend to think that it is always lawyers who exercise the law, but the law is there to be exercised by anyone,” said GWP’s Yumiko Yasuda after the event.
