In his opening address the Rt Hon. Lord Alderdice emphasized the importance of dialogue between people belonging to the societies in conflict. He said that in the last century, coal and steel provided the basis for cooperation in Europe. Similarly in this century, water and environment can provide the core elements of cooperation in the world.

Amb. Christian Frutiger, head of Global Cooperation at the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation reviewed the progress of Blue Peace in the last decade. He explained that Switzerland has an interdependent relationship on water management with other countries in Europe. Therefore, Switzerland accords priority to water cooperation in its development agenda. He urged that efforts should be made to bring water to the top of the international agenda.

Sundeep Waslekar, President of Strategic Foresight Group reviewed the progress of the Blue Peace process in the last decade. He pointed out that many water disputes in Asia, Africa and Latin America were being resolved, new forms of cooperation were being invented such as the Lankang Mekong Commission in South East Asia and the Congo Basin Blue Fund in Africa, and the bilateral Iraq-Turkey cooperation on Tigris in the Middle East.

President Danilo Turk, Chairman of the Global High Level Panel on Water and Peace expressed dissatisfaction on the lack of progress on achieving SDG6 on water. He called for “intensified action” on a number of different fronts.

Professor Aaron Salzburg said that the processes were as important as the results. Water diplomacy has to be regionally owned by all the stakeholders.

The conference discussed the following themes:

�   Progress of Blue Peace in specific regions

�  Importance of data exchange and innovative finance

�  The role of media in water diplomacy

�   Future directions for Blue Peace.

In his concluding remarks, Amb. Michel Mordasini, agreed that we are seriously off track on SDG 6 at the global level and also within national targets. This is a major concern. Moving forward, there is a big challenge to clarify on how we can bring a stronger sense of urgency on the need to act. The policy framework and the action plans under SDG 6 provide a solid path to move forward with the Blue Peace process. Progress of Blue Peace will continue to require a strong commitment for multilateralism. In current times, when so many are questioning multilateral cooperation, Blue Peace provides a strong positive message.

The fact that aquifers were discussed a lot in this meeting was heartening. He said that we need to have accurate data for better decisions – we have taken in the positive and helpful message that technology has helped enormously. But there is still a huge unfinished agenda in terms of the gap of available resources for data. This is a message to governments, partners, donors, that this is an area where we need to be realistic and support the work of statisticians and provide right packaging of the messaging for decision makers. He also stated the need for comprehensive master plans for river basin development, that would relate to participation of people and institutional development along with innovative approaches for financing. We have not yet done enough in pushing international financial institutions beyond their comfort zone. There is a need for the Blue Peace initiative to create and nurture a stronger, results-based approach.