Good governance and leadership have long been considered prerequisites for ensuring that people have access to safe water and sanitation. At the Water Leaders Summit 2011, a flagship event of the Singapore International Water Week, more than 350 water leaders forming the who’s who of the global water industry came together for a meaningful discourse on pressing water issues that impact communities worldwide.
The Water Conversation, a newly introduced segment at the summit brought Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong face-to-face with delegates to answer questions about water and its close linkages with security, governance, finance and technology. The role of water as a strategic necessity and the need for governments to provide the enabling framework to allow water issues to be addressed was underlined by the Prime Minister. The pressing need for governments to look at the entire water cycle from source to tap, and therefore the need to give as much importance to the management of used water as to freshwater was also driven home by PM Lee.
At the Water Ministers’ Plenary, a large number of water ministers from Asia and beyond gathered to take stock of their achievements in the water sector as well as to discuss the challenges that lay ahead. The synergy between the public and private sector was recognised by many water ministers as also the need to have a more responsible pricing regime – a reflection of the changing times. New programmes to combat non-revenue water were highlighted in the speeches of many ministers, indicating that this critical problem was finally getting the much-needed attention.
At the Water Leaders Roundtable, panellists from across the world debated on the water-energy nexus. The advantagesof integrating water and energy were highlighted as well as the opportunities that would arise from doing so. Dry cooling systems instead of wet cooling systems in process industries, energy-neutral instead of energy-negative treatment systems for used water and increasingly energy-efficient desalination were cited as virtuous examples of the energy-water nexus.
Two stimulating workshops were held at the summit – one on “Water Pressures” and the other on “Climate Resilience”. The former examined the pressures on the water sector from the perspective of policy-making, innovation and people. Lively conversations were deftly steered by renowned chairpersons and gave rise to many insightful exchanges among the panellists and between the panellists and the participants.
The second workshop examined practical strategies for managing uncertainties around future climate conditions. Local scenarios for cities in Southeast Asia, India and the Middle East were presented to explain current climate trends and set the tone for discussions on sensible approaches to adaptation and the related governance and institutional challenges.
As the summit came to an end, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Singapore’s Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, reflected on the rational decisions taken by his country during the past few decades, giving food for thought to the water leaders from different countries.
