Global WOPs Congress - Getting Resilience into Utilities
Since 2009, the Global Water Operators' Partnerships Alliance (GWOPA), an initiative hosted by the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), has developed a network of utilities and their partners committed to peer-to-peer support. Water and sanitation service providers, connected through GWOPA, are sharing and helping one another improve services every day through not-for-profit partnership. This year, GWOPA will hold its 4th Global WOPs Congress —a global gathering of hundreds of public utilities and their partners such as financing institutions, NGOs, regulators, government, academia and others.
What really makes this event unique is both that it’s fully free and online, as well as its focus on water and sanitations operators and their staff. The Congress will feature different sessions and spaces to allow for exchange, learning and collaboration.
Thematic Sessions will take stock of current water and sanitation operators’ issues, showcase good approaches, and offer recommendations for how operators can tackle challenges through peer-to-peer partnerships.
Water Operators’ Partnerships (WOPs) Sessions will highlight the latest trends, challenges, and possible ways to increase and improve the WOPs practice.
Finally, the #OPERATORsSTAGE will share operators’ experiences of peer-to-peer support, partnership or working together.
Among the various Thematic Sessions is Climate Adaptation, which will demonstrate examples of resilience and adaptation, ecosystem services, water conservation, source protection, water safety planning, and emergency response planning undertaken by operators and their partners. The Congress will convene, jointly with AGWA, a dedicated session on Climate Resilient Water Supply and Sanitation Systems. The focus will center on how to preserve the longevity of water supply and sanitation operations, as well as the safety of personnel, and how best to integrate climate resilient practices and measures into city-level water and sanitation systems in contribution to NDCs and NAPs. AGWA will further facilitate a training session on the Climate Risk Informed Decision Analysis (CRIDA) tool, a collaborative approach to address and plan for an uncertain future.
Each of us has something to learn but also something to share with water and sanitation utility staff. We hope to see everyone from across the world of water and beyond this 18th–29th of October at this free and fully online event, because by learning from each other we can be better prepared for the challenges ahead. Please register here.
