Simavi at World Water Week

From the 21st until the 27th of augustus the Swedish capital of Stockholm is home for the annual World Water Week.

This global conference attracts over 2,500 experts, opinion leaders, and decision makers on water and sanitation from every corner of the planet. Simavi is present this week to learn more about worldwide water and sanitation issues and solutions. The focus on this year’s edition is ‘Water in an Urbanised World’.

Our world today is dotted with fifty megacities that already have passed the five million inhabitant threshold. The number of people living in cities is yet expected to reach to 80 percent of the world’s population by 2050, outnumbering the total world population of today. Most of this growth is happening in areas at risk of both water shortages and disastrous floods. This means that more than 800 million people live in slums, where water related diseases, such as diarrhoea, malaria and cholera have devastating effects on the livelihood of families and the economies of their countries.

The Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), which is organizing World Water Week, warns for the risk of losing the battle on water and sanitation in many cities around the world. "If we do not increase efforts, by 2015 the same percentage of the world's population will lack access to safe sanitation as in 2000!, says Rolien Sasse, CEO of Simavi, from Stockholm.

Follow her tweets from Stockholm on Twitter.

Gepubliceerd op: 18/08/2011