09.00 to 10.30

Objectives
The Special Session will discuss the significance of material, conceptual and spiritual aspects of water-related cultural heritage. The discussion will focus on the critical relevance of world water heritage for present and future water security, and to promote peace and development. The Special Session flows from the recommendations of the 2020 Tokyo symposium on Water and Culture/Heritage which was organized by the National Institute on Policy Studies of Japan in cooperation with the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on Water and Heritage (ISCWater).

The Session intends to reflect on the role of international cooperation to the achievement of SDG6 taking into consideration concrete projects existing in Portuguese speaking countries. This session will address the technical, social, environmental, and regulatory perspectives of these countries, with a view to achieving the SDGs, in particular the SDG6.

Les zones humides jouent un rôle important dans la sécurité de l’eau, la résilience des communautés, la réduction des risques climatiques et la sécurité humaine. Les gouvernements Africains s’engagent pour leur sauvegarde à travers des plans et politiques nationaux et internationaux comme la Grande Muraille Verte et la Convention des Nations Unies sur la Lutte Contre la Désertification.

The primary focus of the session will be to present AfWA with focus on its contribution to empower African private and public WASH operators for better achieving the SDG 6. This session would allow AfWA to showcase of its strategy to scale up programs for high impact in accelerating access to water and sanitation services in Africa.

OSH Forum is an international and collective initiative that aims to produce tangible evidence based recommendations towards the operational implementation of an integrated One Sustainable Health approach. These recommendations will be made by the 6 International Working Groups and synthesized in a One Sustainable Health Declaration to be published during the World Health Summit 2022 October in Berlin. This declaration will provide guideline s for operational programmes and public policies for states, international agencies, companies, NGOs and foundations.

This session will present ongoing actions on the themes: depollution of water bodies, social technologies, service supply regularization, and adaptability in order to share innovative practices that contribute to the advancement of the sector, above all, to ensure the access to water and sanitation to low-income communities.

The session aims first to address the Water-Peace-Security nexus in the West and Central African context. Also, it aims to present the main achievements of the DEP initiative since its official launch in 2019; the session will serve as an opportunity to exchange on the main future strategic orientations of the DEP in terms of think tank on the water-peace-development nexus. To this end, the session will aim to explore the possibilities of setting up the follow-up mechanism of the WEF recommendations in concert with the Dakar Water Forum Secretariat.

The session aims to present water as a key element without which none of the
problems associated with global changes will be resolved: combating desertification, resilience to change climate and epidemic prevention. The session also aims to discuss how it is possible to revive, in some form or another, the Climate is water initiative, so as to produce, by the community, and in the shortest possible time, (from preferably in view of COP 27) a series of synthetic but unified messages, to be transmitted to external partners, and to broadcast during major international events.

The Mediterranean and the Sahel are among the poorest regions of the world in terms of fresh water, which leads them to use other types of water than lakes, rivers and aquifers, and which are therefore called non-conventional water resources: wastewater, which is treated to be reused, and salt water or marine water, which is desalinated. These mobilizations are developing rapidly in view of demographics and global warming, but at the cost of sharply rising energy consumption that runs counter to climate objectives.