Addressing the global water crisis in a challenging political environment

Event Type
Online debate

Location / Date
Online, 10.03.2025

German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), Bonn Water Network

Too little, too much, too dirty –  water challenges in virtually all countries are increasing with climate change and due to overuse and lacking treatment of the precious resource. Global and local changes in water flows could “(…) increasingly lead to threatening situations that are beyond the spectrum of human experience and could escalate into regional water emergencies”, as the German Advisory Council on Global Change warns in its recent report. The mid-term review on the Sustainable Development Goal 6 on Clean Water and Sanitation shows that the world is not on track to achieve this goal by 2030. More than ever, we need international and global cooperation to sustainably manage water – but the current political environment marked by the rise of geopolitics, nationalism and competition for water is challenging. On the road to the 2026 United Nations Water Conference, we urgently need to better understand global water challenges and find adequate responses.

Join our Bonn Water Network* event to learn more about key findings on the global water crisis and to discusses options to address them in the current context.

• Prof. Dr. Anna-Katharina Hornidge, director of the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) and co-chair of the German Advisory Council on Global Change, will present the key findings of the report Water in a heated world.
• Dr. habil. Johannes Cullmann, head of unit International Collaboration at the German Federal Institute of Hydrology and former Vice-Chair of UN-Water, will reflect on recent developments in and future perspectives for global water governance
• Prof. Dr Ines Dombrowsky, head of the Department ‘Environmental Governance’ at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), introduces the recommendations of the paper “Empowering global water governance: taking the 2023 UN Water Conference outcomes forward to address the current water crises”.
• Prof. Dr. Anindita Sarkar, Senior Researcher at Department of Ecology and Natural Resources Management at Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn, will discuss the local implementation of global concerns in the field of groundwater governance
• Dr. Annabelle Houdret, senior researcher at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) and speaker of the Bonn Water Network, will moderate the event.

The Bonn Water Network consists of eleven renowned institutions with longstanding experience on water and related issues: the Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies (BICC); Bonn University with its Institute of Geography (GIUB) holding the UNESCO Chair in Human Water Systems, the Center for Development Research (ZEF) and the Institute for Hygiene and Public Health (IHPH); the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS); the IUCN Environmental Law Centre; and three Bonn-based UN institutions: the United Nations Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the Global Water Operators Partnerships Alliance (UN-Habitat/GWOPA). In addition, Berlin- based Water Integrity Network (WIN) and the International Centre for Water Resources and Global Change (ICGWRC) based in Koblenz are partners of the BWN. For more information: www.bonnwaternetwork.de.

Hinweis

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