On August, 26—31, 2012, professionals from the scientific, business, policy and civic communities gathered in the capital of Sweden for the Stockholm World Water Week (SWWW). The theme for this year is Water and Food Security.

Since 1991 World Water Week is hosted and organised by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) and takes place each year in Stockholm as the annual focal point for the globe's water issues.

Each year the Stockholm World Water Week addresses a particular theme to enable a deeper examination of a specific water-related topic. While not all events during the week relate to the overall theme, the workshops driven by the Scientific Programme Committee and many seminars and side events do focus on various aspects of the theme. This year the event was focused on one of the oldest and most urgent challenges of human development: Water and Food Security.

There are 7 billion people to feed on the planet today and another 2 billion are expected to join by 2050. Feeding everyone in the future with limited water resources means that we have to become better at growing more “crops per drop” as well as review our thinking regarding how we produce, consume, and trade food all along the food chain.

Beyond food, the Week’s programme explored the diverse governance, scientific and development-oriented aspects of the global water challenge — touching on issues ranging from water management, climate change and opportunities for integrating policy around the water-food-energy nexus. International Water Resources Economics Consortium brought the world’s top water economists to Stockholm to discuss the real costs of the problems and the benefits of the solutions that we have on the table.

The World Water Week was comprised of over 100 events, including 60 seminars, 42 side events, 8 scientific workshops, 6 excursions and field visits, 4 prize ceremonies, 2 plenary sessions, and a Royal Banquet.

UN-Water jointly organized and contributed to a series of seminars and events and had the UN-Water Pavilion in the exhibition Hall B. More about UN-Water events: http://www.unwater.org/events.html.

Read more about SWWW 2012:

http://www.worldwaterweek.org

http://www.worldwaterweek.org/documents/WWW_PDF/2012/WWW-Programme-2012-web.pdf)