This conference, Sustainable Water Management in Cities, focused on the role of stakeholders, politicians and the media in steering change at the local level.

The conference addressed urban water issues in developing countries and was attended by more than 200 experts, local government officials, media specialists, water operators and political representatives of cities and stakeholder groups. The event was also an intermediary step on the path to the World Water Day 2011 focusing this time on Water for Cities: Responding to the Urban Challenge.

The conference was organised by the UN Office to Support the International Decade for Action: Water for Life 2005-2015 implementing the UN Water Communication and Advocacy Programme (with UN-Habitat and the Water Operators Partnership), the City of Zaragoza, and the SWITCH – Managing Water for the City of the Future project.

The ICLEI European Secretariat has taken part in SWITCH since its very beginning in 2006. SWITCH is an action research programme, co-funded by the European Union and a cross-disciplinary team of more than 30 partners from 15 countries around the world. It aims to move away from ad hoc solutions to urban water management, instead working towards a more integrated approach.

ICLEI’s main role in SWITCH is to make the outcome of SWITCH research and demonstration accessible to local governments and water utilities. This will happen through the development of a comprehensive set of training materials available in its English version via the SWITCH Training Desk and on CD-ROM from early 2011 on. Spanish and Portuguese language versions will be available by April 2011.

For further details, or to register for the conference, click here.