World Water Week: Energy and Water Communities Must Cooperate to Meet Global Challenges

STOCKHOLM, Sept. 1, 2014 /CNW/ - Global leaders gathered in Stockholm today for the 24^th annual World Water Week, urging the energy and water communities to work together to face some of the main challenges of our time, providing clean drinking water and energy for a growing world population. 

The theme of 2014 World Water Week is "Energy and Water". Water and energy are interdependent in more ways than not. We need energy for pumping, storing, transporting and treating water, we need water for producing almost all sorts of energy. An increase or decrease in one will immediately affect the other. The two resources are also inseparable from sustainable development and must be tirelessly promoted in global decision-making.

Addressing the opening session of the Week, Mr. Torgny Holmgren, Executive Director of World Water Week organiser Stockholm International Water Institute, said: "The challenges are immense. With the global demand for water projected to grow by 55 per cent between 2000 and 2050 and electricity demand expected to increase by 50 per cent in the next two decades, there is an urgent need for a closer relationship between the energy and water communities if we are to provide solutions for all peoples to prosper."

Professor John Briscoe, this year's Stockholm Water Prize laureate, spoke about water as a platform for growth, both of other sectors and society as a whole, and said that "developing countries face big challenges. They have yet to mobilise those resources." He added that there is "no eternal solution [to the water crisis], neither here nor there. Instead, there is a cycle of challenges and responses."

In over 100 seminars, workshops and events spread throughout the week, delegates will discuss ongoing and future work and collaboration between the energy and water communities.

Professor John Briscoe, a native of South Africa, will receive the Stockholm Water Prize from H.M. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, during a ceremony in Stockholm City Hall on Thursday 4 September.

Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) is a policy institute that generates knowledge and informs decision-makers towards water wise policy and sustainable development. SIWI organises World Water Week in Stockholm and hosts the Stockholm Water Prize, the Stockholm Junior Water Prize and the Stockholm Industry Water Award.

Press contacts, interview requests and further information: http://www.worldwaterweek.org/pressroom

SOURCE: Stockholm International Water Institute

Britt-Louise Andersson, Communications Director, SIWI, [phone], [email protected]