Welcome to the United Nations
Who we are: SIWI is a water institute. We leverage knowledge and our convening power to strengthen water governance for a just, prosperous, and sustainable future.
SIWI focuses on a range of research and development topics within and around water that support decision-makers worldwide. SIWI hosts the World Water Week, the world’s leading annual water event, and awards the Stockholm Water Prize the most prestigious water award, and the Stockholm Junior Water Prize fosters future generations of water excellence.
SIWI also hosts several flagship programs, including the UNDP-SIWI Water Governance Facility, the International Centre for Water Cooperation (ICWC), the Action Platform for Source-to-Sea Management (S2S Platform), and the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA). Through the Swedish Water House, we connect Swedish water stakeholders with each other and to international processes.
Why we focus on water: The SDGs describe an integrated trajectory for global development where focus falls not on single goals in isolation; but the entire suite of goals constitutes a pathway to the “future we want”. In this way, water serves as an exemplary, if not the single most important, connecting factor for reaching the Global Goals beyond SDG 6 itself.
Water is essential for basic human needs as described in the human rights to water and sanitation, but also for marine and land ecosystems, for producing food and energy, and supporting livelihoods and industry. Water has a critical role to play in both mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. And not least, water is an important factor in the spiritual and aesthetic lives of billions of people.
SIWI’s focus on water governance places SDG 6 and its relations to the other goals in a central position for our work, driving analysis of the state of the implementation ahead of HLPF 2018.
