This year's World Water Week in Stockholm adapted to the context of Covid19 with virtual sessions. As such, a special webinar on the 9th World Water Forum was organized by the Executive Secretariat and the World Water Council on 28 August 2020 with the participation of many actors from different continents. Under the theme ''Join us on the road to Dakar 2021'', it provided information on the structure and preparation of the Forum, while encouraging participants to contribute to the priority areas and to engage in the preparatory process.
On this occasion, the interventions of Paulo Salles, member of the International Steering Committee of the Forum, Abdoulaye Sène, Executive Secretary of the Forum, Yoonjin Kim, Co-Chairman of the Cooperation Pilot Group, Patrick Lavarde, Co-Chair of the Forum and Loïc Fauchon, President of the World Water Council, focused on the ambition of Senegal and the World Water Council to organize a socially, politically and economically effective Forum. A Forum linked to global agendas and commitments that will address the challenges of water and sanitation on a global scale, with a view to catalyzing actions for the achievement of the MDGs. A call was made to all actors to join the ongoing efforts to make "Dakar 2021" a Forum of concrete responses for the populations of the different regions of the world, so that water security for peace and development can be ensured everywhere and for everyone.
During the opening ceremony of World Water Week on 24 August 2024, Mr. Serigne Mbaye Thiam, Minister of Water and Sanitation, read a message from His Excellency Mr Macky Sall, President of the Republic of Senegal, who invited the global water community and its partners to actively participate in the preparatory process and the organization of the Forum to build a better world, a world of solidarity and resilience that leaves no one behind. This is why, in order to give impetus to a new dynamic and to forge fruitful and effective partnerships for the achievement of the MDGs, Mr. Macky Sall decided to organize a Summit of Heads of State and Government and major international institutions on the occasion of the Forum, to make historic commitments to strengthen actions, in particular for the rapid achievement of universal access to water and sanitation.
