Water JPI Water4SDGs Knowledge Hub Workshop #2: ‘Alignment of Water Related RDI Activities to Support UN SDGs in light of COVID-19 Challenges’
The 2nd Workshop of Water4SDGs Knowledge Hub was organized virtually on July 9, 2020. The event was attended by researchers, policy makers and funding agency representatives to frame a ‘position paper’ that addresses the key question of “how to align research agendas and strategies to facilitate the implementation of water related SDGs globally under the pandemic conditions?”. The attendees were invited to handle this issue by addressing the following questions:
- What is the potential of water related RDI activities in responding the crises (short term) and building risk management and resilience capacity (long term) in response to pandemic conditions?
- How far are we from the global implementation of SDG 6 targets by 2030? How did the COVID-19 affected the UN SDGs agenda and what opportunities might have been discovered to foster international cooperation?
- How should research funding organizations address COVID-19-water security connections in national, regional and international call programs (in terms of call topics, structures, eligibility criteria, expected impacts, dissemination and exploitation procedures)?
The morning session of the workshop provided the opportunity for three key-note presentations by the esteemed representatives of EurEau (Bertrand Vallet, Policy Officer), UN-Water (Olcay Unver, Vice-President) and European Commission (Avelino Gonzalez Gonzalez, Senior Policy Officer). In the afternoon, the workshop attendees were split into to break-out discussion groups to scrutinize the zero draft of the position paper.
The expert group of Water4SDGs Knowledge Hub set to work on the position paper following the vacation season with the aim of publishing and disseminating the document until the end of November 2020.
