━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
【JWF News Vol. 251】21 May 2025
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◇ Contents ◇
・Report from the Japan Water Forum
– Kick-off Meeting Held in Riyadh to Launch Preparations for the 11th World Water Forum
– “Planet Aqua: Rethinking Our Home in the Universe” The Outcomes of the 15th APWF Webinar with Mr. Jeremy Rifkin & Experts
– JWF Fund 2024 Projects Completion Reports
・Announcement from the Japan Water Forum
– IYGP 2025 Tajikistan High Level Conference Side Event: Science Diplomacy for Glacier Preservation and Transboundary Water Resilience in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH)
– Youth Water Forum 2025: Call for Video Submissions Begins on June 2nd!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
・Report from the Japan Water Forum
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
– Kick-off Meeting Held in Riyadh to Launch Preparations for the 11th World Water Forum
A kick-off meeting marking the official launch of preparations for the 11th World Water Forum, scheduled for March 2027, was held on April 14–15 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The event convened a diverse group of stakeholders from around 60 countries, including government officials, representatives of international organizations, private sector leaders, researchers, and youth, to discuss the Forum’s overarching framework and priority themes.
The Forum’s central theme is: “Actions for a Better Tomorrow”. Under this banner, six sub-themes will guide discussions: Water Security, Financing Water, Water Diplomacy, Water for People and Nature, Valuing Water, Water Innovation. Breakout sessions for each sub-theme facilitated active discussions.
Please visit the following website for details
https://www.waterforum.jp/en/news/23276/
(Reported by Yumiko Asayama, Chief Manager)
———————————————————————————————————
– “Planet Aqua: Rethinking Our Home in the Universe” The Outcomes of the 15th APWF Webinar with Mr. Jeremy Rifkin & Experts
The Asia-Pacific Water Forum (APWF) organized its 15th webinar featuring Mr. Jeremy Rifkin as the keynote speaker. The panel discussion that followed included three distinguished experts: Prof. Taikan Oki, Professor at the University of Tokyo and Vice President of the Japan Water Forum; Dr. Shahbaz Khan, Director and Representative to the UNESCO Regional Office for East Asia and Vice Chair of the APWF Governing Council; and Dr. Qingfeng Zhang, Senior Director for Agriculture, Food, Nature, and Rural Development at the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Ms. Changhua Wu, Chair of APWF Governing Council, moderated the panel discussion.
This webinar was convened to introduce Mr. Rifkin’s latest book, Planet Aqua: Rethinking Our Home in the Universe, which was published globally in September 2024 in all major world languages. The session also explored how Rifkin’s visionary ideas can be applied within the context of Asia and the Pacific.
Please visit the following website for details
https://www.waterforum.jp/en/news/23295/
(Reported by Yumiko Asayama, Chief Manager)
———————————————————————————————————
– JWF Fund 2024 Projects Completion Reports
JWF Fund 2024 financially supported five projects aimed at solving water and sanitation issues, essential for preventing the spread of COVID-19. The projects included rehabilitation of wells, as well as improving access to WASH and awareness-raising activities on infectious disease control. Please see the reports on our website for more information.
Please visit the following website for details
https://www.waterforum.jp/en/news/23196/
(Reported by Takejiro Suzuki, Project Manager)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
・Announcement from the Japan Water Forum
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
– IYGP 2025 Tajikistan High Level Conference Side Event: Science Diplomacy for Glacier Preservation and Transboundary Water Resilience in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH)
The Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH), known as the “Third Pole,” holds over 54,000 glaciers that serve as Asia’s key water towers. These glaciers feed ten major rivers, supporting nearly two billion people. However, climate change is accelerating glacial melt, leading to increased floods, droughts, and Glacier Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs). GLOF risks may triple in the coming decades, yet few glacial lakes are currently monitored. These growing climate risks transcend borders, posing threats to water, food, and energy security, as well as ecosystems and regional stability. Despite shared risks, governance is fragmented, and cooperation remains limited.
This session will explore how science diplomacy, regional collaboration, and integrated adaptation strategies can drive urgent, coordinated action to safeguard glaciers and enhance resilience in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH).
Please visit the following website for details
https://www.waterforum.jp/en/news/23318/
(Reported by Yumiko Asayama, Chief Manager)
———————————————————————————————————
– Youth Water Forum 2025: Call for Video Submissions Begins on June 2nd!
The Youth Water Forum invites 15 to 18 year old from both Japan and abroad to submit 3-minute videos in English on themes related to water. The content is open and can cover a wide range of topics, including water-related events in daily life, research on water, local water-related volunteer activities or traditional events, and international exchange activities related to water.
The application period is scheduled to be from June 2nd to December 5th, 2025. Details on how to apply will be released on the Youth Water Forum’s official website on June 2nd.
Please visit the following website for details
https://www.waterforum.jp/en/news/23280/
(Reported by Koutoku Takeishi, Manager)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
JWF News Archives
https://www.waterforum.jp/en/genre-news/newsletter/
If you wish to post information on our bulletin board, or should you prefer not to receive further JWF News, please contact us. You can also get in touch regarding subscribing, changes of address, or any other comments or requests
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
【JWF News Vol. 251】21 May 2025
Japan Water Forum
6th fl., 5-4 Nihonbashi-Hakozaki-cho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 103-0015
TEL: 03-5645-8040 FAX: 03-5645-8041
E-mail: news[at]waterforum.jp URL: https://www.waterforum.jp/en/
※Please change [at] to @
X: https://x.com/JapanWaterForum
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/waterforum.jp
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
