Meet IGRAC at the World Water Forum in Dakar, Senegal

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From 21 to 26 March 2022, the 9th World Water Forum will be held in Dakar/Diamnadio, Senegal. With the official World Water Day taking place at the forum and its main theme being ‘Groundwater, making the invisible visible’, IGRAC will be attend with three staff members (Neno Kukuric, Christina Fraser and Stefan Siepman) who are contributing to several sessions. Below is shown an outline of IGRAC main activities at the forum.

Launch of WWDR “Groundwater: Making the Invisible Visible”

21 March | 11:15-11:45 (GTM) | Dakar Arena

WWDR 2022

During this session, UNESCO WWAP will present the World Water Development Report 2022. This 2022 edition of the WWDR, which will be released on World Water Day 2022, will expand on importance of properly protecting and managing groundwater resources in the fight against poverty, the creation of decent jobs, sustainable development and increasing the resilience of the societies and economies to climate change. IGRAC contributed to this 2022 edition as well. 

Celebration of the UN World Water Day “Groundwater: Making the Invisible Visible”

22 March | 8:00-9:00 (GTM) | Plenary Session Room Teaser 1

This session at the World Water Forum will be the pivot event of World Water Day 2022. Several high level speakers will give a keynote speech to highlight the importance of the invisible resource called groundwater. More information on speakers and the final agenda will soon be published. For more information on World Water Day, visit the official WWD2022 website.

High-Level Panel 1: “Making the invisible visible: groundwater a response for resilience and sustainability”

22 March | 9:00-10:30 (GTM) | Auditorium CICAD

The High-Level Panel (HLP) is intended to be an event of the UN-World Water Day 2022 celebration programme as follow up to the United Nations World Water Development Report 2022 presentation, with a debate between high-level experts and countries representatives. The HLP is meant to discuss how groundwater can be a response to water security challenges. The HLP will give special focus on investments in Groundwater in Africa and SIDS and examine how groundwater offers a potential pathway to sustain human activities and ecosystems health, with a particular focus on Africa and SIDS.  Africa, the youngest continent (almost 60% of the population is under the age of 29 years), needs more than other special attention to groundwater, to ensure water security for future generations. There are 72 transboundary aquifers in Africa, that represent a potential for socio-economic development of the region. 

Special Session: Making invisible visible: Groundwater Catalogue for informed policy development
and management interventions

22 March | 10:45-12:15 (GTM) | Room 13 EXPO

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Groundwater catalogue
Groundwater catalogue

The session is about strengthening interface science-policy-practice interface using the newly developed Groundwater Catalogue (soon to be launched) to facilitate this process. Objective of the session is to actively involve groundwater policy and decision makers in development and verification of the catalogue. The session will provide a necessary input for a further development of the catalogue, as an innovative, collaborative tool for a better provision of essential groundwater policy and management info.

This Groundwater Catalogue is a Wikipedia-like application meant for a better provision of information on groundwater management tools, measures and instruments, encompassing a supply and demand, groundwater protection and stakeholder participation. The catalogue will enable policy- and decision makers to better explore suitable solutions for complex groundwater issues, based on factsheets, case studies and references.