UNESCO-IHE Vice Rector to serve on Global Agenda Council on Water

Prof. Stefan Uhlenbrook, Vice Rector of UNESCO-IHE, will serve on the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Water 2014-2016. The World Economic Forum is a not-for-profit Foundation committed to improving the state of the world. The provision of water services is a core development issue that needs the appropriate political and financial attention. 783 million people still do not have access to clean water and almost 2.5 billion to adequate sanitation.

Close the water services investment gap

The Global Agenda Councils is the world’s largest volunteer network of global experts. Every two years the Network brings together leaders, pioneers, and experts from business, government, international organizations, academia, and civil society to provide innovative thinking on critical global issues and incubate projects, events and campaigns for the public good. 

Watch the video about the Global Agenda Councils here.

The Council on Water will build on the wealth of existing knowledge and studies that have already been undertaken on the topic. It will add an innovative dimension to the discourse with the aim of designing a new model that can close the water services investment gap in both developed and developing countries.

"Developing a new model that will improve equitable and sustainable access to water and sanitation services is a very ambitious objective. This new model will hopefully help to close the water services investment gap in both developed and developing countries.

Because of the high-level expertise in this GAC, I am confident that we will come up with something innovative, and hopefully can also demonstrate its applicability in the coming two years," says Prof. Stefan Uhlenbrook.

One of the top 10 trends identified by the Global Agenda is 'increasing water stress'.

Download the outlook on 2015 here, page 32-33 elaborate on this topic