7th International Water Conference kicks off on Jan 20

The three-day-long '7th International Water Conference-2022' is going to start on January 20. The event is organised by ActionAid Bangladesh under the theme ‘Teesta River Basin: Overcoming the Challenges.’

This year's conference will be held virtually until January 22 considering the rise of Covid-19 infections, according to a press release.

The conference will focus on the existing crisis and potential solutions in the Teesta River basin. The purpose of this year's conference is to draw the attention of the international community, and national level policy makers through the collection and discussion of data on the morphology, ethnographic issues and territorial disputes of the Teesta River in order to find a solution to this problem.

The three-day-long conference will serve as a major platform for public-private authorities, NGOs, donor agencies, project implementing agencies, civil society, academics, water experts, environmentalists, and grassroots people to come together and discuss about the Teesta River.

The conference will be held based on three thematic sessions- History, Morphology and Spatiotemporal Changes of Teesta and Surrounding Rivers; Structural Interventions and Regional Geo-politics around Teesta River Basin; Teesta River Basin and its Ecosystem and Gender Implications. Apart from Bangladesh, river and water experts from Japan, Sweden, Brunei, Nepal and India will participate in the conference.

ActionAid Bangladesh has been working for a long time to ensure the importance of water resources, water fairness and rights of river. As a continuation of ActionAid Bangladesh’s advocacy on pro-people water justice and people’s indigenous rights to the rivers, the conference will go beyond disciplinary boundaries to recognize the need for equity and ethics of water governance.

The International Water Conference has been held since 2016 with the objective of spreading people's awareness about water resources and its management, developing innovative ideas about water, encouraging various types of dialogue, forming alliances to work together on water, encouraging cross-border activities. In continuation of this, this year's conference is being organised considering the existing crisis and potential ways of solutions in the river Teesta.