27 January 2010
Davos summit will fail to make a splash, says expert
A water policy expert from the University of Dundee has said the World Economic Forum’s efforts to address serious global water supply issues amount to little more than 'window dressing'.
Professor Patricia Wouters, Director of the University’s UNESCO HELP Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science, and a member of the Global Agenda Council on Water, said that the WEF was failing to provide the platform that such a serious topic required.
The Geneva-based non-profit foundation is best known for its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, which brings together business leaders, international politicians, intellectuals, and journalists to discuss the biggest issues facing the world, including health and the environment.
This year’s meeting, taking place between Wednesday 27th and Sunday 31st January, marks the 40th anniversary of the first World Economic Forum meeting. Over 2,500 delegates from over 90 countries will work together on pressing global challenges under the theme 'Improve the State of the World: Rethink, Redesign, Rebuild'.
Professor Wouters said that the fact that world leaders will be discussing the most serious health and environmental issues facing the world in depth was a positive sign, but was disappointed that only four of the 224 sessions will deal with management of the world’s water resources.
According to Professor Wouters, this is incredible given the critical importance of water in supporting life, and the looming crises as a result of water shortages across many areas of the globe.
'Rethinking, redesigning and rebuilding should include updating and integrating new approaches to managing the world’s water resources,' she said. 'An integral part of improving the world, is ensuring water for all. In the current climate of global economic crises, adverse impacts from climate change and natural disasters, and growing gaps between the rich and the poor, water can be a catalyst for peace.'
'Failing to highlight the importance of this irreplaceable resource misses out one of the fundamental platforms for improved global cooperation and security. The number of people living in water-stressed countries will increase from 700 million today to more than three billion by 2025 - 35 per cent of the predicted global population - but we aren’t addressing this is at Davos, apart from window-dressing.'
Professor Wouters went on to say that remarkable progress has been made in some respects, but the lack of joined-up legal, policy and scientific thinking in addressing water-related problems hampered efforts to head off future catastrophic water shortages. She called for innovative approaches in developing a 'new generation of local water leaders'.
'It is good that national leaders will speak on the importance of water to their socio-economic welfare, and that regional development banks and the UN consider this in their work,' she said. 'But serious problems remain around the world from potential breaches of regional security, to conflicts-of-use at the user level.'
'Water lawyers, and water law expertise must be more holistically mobilised - business as usual simply won’t do.'
Notes for Editors
The UNESCO Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science operates under the auspices of UNESCO and forms part of Postgraduate School of Management and Policy at the University of Dundee.
The Centre is the world’s only UNESCO Centre combining water law, policy and science; its multidisciplinary approach ensures that it is able to draw upon the full range of academic and practical expertise needed to effect real benefits for real rivers.
As part of UNESCO’s International Hydrological Programme, the Centre is establishing a global network of basins to improve the links between hydrology and the needs of society. The Centre is committed to local capacity building and an empowerment agenda; it is focussing its teaching resources on developing the next generation of global water leaders through its Water Law Water Leaders flexible educational programmes.
For further information please contact:
Daniel Gilbert,
Knowledge Exchange Coordinator
UNESCO Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science,
Peters Building,
University of Dundee,
Dundee
DD1 4HN
Email: d.gilbert@dundee.ac.uk
Phone: 01382 386478
Website: www.dundee.ac.uk/water/.
For media enquiries contact:
Grant Hill
Press Officer
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384768
E-MAIL: g.hill@dundee.ac.uk
MOBILE: 07854 953277 |
