25 Years of Action on Transboundary Waters
This World Water Day, the GEF is gearing up for its signature event on transboundary oceans, lakes, rivers and aquifers: the 8th International Water Conference (IWC8), taking place in Sri Lanka May 9-13th. The conference will celebrate 25 years of investments and results in International Waters.
The conference is organized biennially by GEF IW: LEARN, a learning platform that aims to strengthen International Waters management by facilitating information sharing among stakeholders. IW:LEARN improves GEF IW projects’ information base, replication efficiency, transparency, stakeholder ownership, and sustainability of benefits, and the conference helps further increase the South-to-South exchange of experiences.
Globally, the GEF has invested a total of US$1.5 billion in its International Waters (IW) portfolio, including 242 projects in 170 countries, leveraging about US$8.7 billion in financing from other sources. For over two decades, these projects have targeted many of the world’s most threatened and damaged transboundary surface water, groundwater and coastal and marine ecosystems.
The IWC8 will bring together more than 300 high-level decision makers, experts and practitioners from around the world to facilitate cross-sectorial learning from the GEF IW portfolio and beyond, drawing lessons from it and building participant capacity in management and technical areas. It is a premier forum for knowledge exchange about key international waters management issues among GEF staff, beneficiary countries, UN agencies, transboundary waters management institutions, NGO’s and the private sector.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in 2015 include two specific goals addressing global water issues: goal 6, Ensure access to water and sanitation for all and goal 14, Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources. With this in mind, IWC8 is held under the theme of “Scaling Up International Water Investments in the Context of Achieving the SDGs”, with tracks devoted to catalyzing sectoral transformation, scaling up investments, strengthening governance, and managing and utilizing data for evidence-based decision making.
Following the conference, an international roundtable on May 14-15 will bring together a range of IW stakeholders to examine how partnerships between the private sector and countries, joint water management commissions, civil society, donors, marine management entities and regional organizations can be established. The roundtable will help coordinate toward a coherent and tangible approach to private sector engagement in source to sea management, as well as the interface of these actors with private sector companies, banks and other private actors for sustainable investments for our shared water.
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