The theme of the conference was "The water, energy and food security nexus - water resources in the green economy." It was organised under the auspices of Germany’s Federal Development Ministry (BMZ) and Federal Environment Ministry (BMU), to contribute to the run-up to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20) scheduled for 2012.

The Bonn conference pursued two objectives: to develop cross-sector solutions for achieving water, energy and food security and to position the interface of water, energy and food security within the discourse of the “Rio plus 20” process and the “green economy”.

The international participants at this two-day conference included around 400 high-ranking decision-makers and decision-shapers from the spheres of politics, academia, the United Nations, civil society and the private sector.