WESF plays a role in promoting standardization and eliminating global trade barriers.
The 40th meeting of UN-Water took place on 4-5 November at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
UN-Water Chair Alvaro Lario opened proceedings, and the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Water, Mrs. Retno Marsudi, addressed around 130 representatives from UN-Water Members and Partners.
WFEO became a partner of UN-Water in August 2023. Since then, the WFEO Water Committee has appointed representatives to several UN-Water Expert Groups and Task Forces. WFEO was represented at the meeting by Ignacio González-Castelao, the Chair of the Water Committee (-Spanish Engineering Institute– in person attendance) and by Adeyinka Sobowale (-Nigerian Society of Engineers– attendance by videoconference).
At right: Ignacio González-Castelao, the Chair of the Water Committee
At the meeting, different initiatives of the UN-Water member organizations and the steps in the preparation of the UN 2026 Water Conference were presented. During the event, WFEO took the floor to present the Engineering Capacity Building for Africa Program initiative and the possibility to collaborate with other UN-Water initiatives covering the same purposes, such as the ‘SDG 6 Capacity Development Initiative’ led by UNESCO. WFEO also expressed its interest in participating in the “Contributing Actions” on non-conventional water resources framed within the Priority Collaborative Actions of the UN-Water Collaborative Implementation Plan.
The 41st UN-Water Meeting will be from 2-3 April 2025, in Rome, Italy.