Stockholm World Water Week
Every year the world’s water sector convenes in Stockholm, this year under the theme of “Water for People and Progress”.
Water Witness and our partners are hosting multiple events across the week.
Forging a fair water future
SIWI seminar series - Unequal Waters
Few things expose the inequalities of the twenty-first century more starkly than water. The world possesses the knowledge, technology and wealth to deliver water security for all. Yet billions remain water insecure, while others capture disproportionate benefits from a shared resource.
Our SIWI Seminar Series 'Unequal Waters' hosted with WIN, SWA and the Republic of South Africa asks why.
We’ll confront the politics, power and economic systems behind water insecurity: who gets water, who doesn’t, who decides, who benefits - and whose voices count? We’ll explore how political exclusion, resource and process capture, weak rights, distorted knowledge and entrenched social inequalities keep the same people water insecure generation after generation.
Expect evidence, uncomfortable questions, diverse perspectives and practical solutions. Where can we break these cycles? Who needs to act? And what needs to change in our own institutions and practice?
Check out our background paper [LINKED BELOW], which sets out the evidence and introduces the Water Inequality Trap as a framework for understanding - and dismantling - the systemic drivers of global water insecurity.
Come to this series and help shift the conversation from treating the symptoms of water insecurity to confronting its causes - and help forge a fairer water future.
Click the button below to view and download Background Paper, which is useful reading before the seminar series.
Unequal waters - uncovering systematic inequalities
Sunday 23rd August 2-3pm, online only
Speakers include:
Aaron Salzberg, CEO, American Water Resources Association
Barbara Schreiner, Executive Director, Water Integrity Network
Case study presentations
Systemic inequalities in global supply chains: Land tenure, water extraction, and resource control
Institutional design failures in fiscal policy as a structural driver of inequality
Constitutional Water Rights Violations in Zimbabwe and the Silencing of Accountability
Dr. Risimati Mathye, Deputy Director General, Water Services, South Africa
Dismantling systemic inequalities
Monday 24th: 4:30-6pm Room 26, Level 2
An in-person workshop to develop a shared vision and set of actionable steps. Come prepared to work!
Political exclusion – who decides?
Resource capture – who gets funded?
Rights denial – who is protected?
Knowledge suppression – who is visible?
Process capture – who shapes practice?
Social reproduction – who bears the burden?
Shaping a just water future
Tues 25th: 9-10:30am Room A4, Level 6
Speakers include:
Tanja Miškova, Ambassador-at-Large for Water Diplomacy, Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Republic of Slovenia
David Mahlobo, Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation, Republic of South Africa
Pedro Arrojo Agudo, UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights on Water and Sanitation
Nick Hepworth, CEO, Water Witness International
Muyatwa Sitali, CEO, Sanitation and Water For All
Sheryl Hedges, Assistant Secretary and Branch Head of the First Nations Water Branch at the Australian Government's Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water
Kaveh Madani - 2026 Stockholm Water Prize Laureate, Director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health
Wed 26th: 9-1030am, Room 26, Level 2
Behavioural perspectives for inclusive water security for people and progress
Speakers include representatives from
London School of Economics (LSE)
Shahidi wa Maji Tanzania
Water Witness Malawi
United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH)
WaterAid Tanzania
Online passes for SWWW are free: register for your free online pass.
Check out the full programme here: Stockholm World Water Week 2026: Programme
[please note- all times are CEST]