2004-08-16. Stockholm.

International Water Conference, known as Stockholm Water Symposium or World Water Week, was opened today in Stockhom, Sweden, by the Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation. This meeting was attended by 1200 people from more than hundred countries representing academic institutions, UN agencies, donor communities governments, research institutions, international and local organisations, financial institutions, and private sector and companies. Mogadishu University is represented by Dr. Abdullahi Elmi Mohamed, chairman of the Somali Centre for Water & Environment.

The conference focused on water resources managament and approaches for food and urban security. New approaches, strategies and policies for solving world water problems are required, as over a billion pf the world’s people remain without access to safe drinking water and a double of that number are denied to an adequate sanitaion.

The conference, which will contuniu the whole week, has also focused on the wider, underlying causes of and solution to corruption in the water sector, and its effects on the socio-economic equality and efficiency in water services and financing. Kenyan Minister of Water Resources, Ms. Martha Karua, and Ms. Ann Kajumulo, Under-Secreteray-General, United Nations, Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, were among the participants of the conference.