Water consumption by the power sector was a central issue in discussions during the 5th World Water Forum in Istanbul. After agriculture, the power industry is the second largest user of water. In the United States today, 39% of water withdrawals are used for power production, compared with 31% in Europe.

Despite its timing – late on the Friday 19th afternoon – session 6.1.3 about Education and Local Empowerment in water services, attracted more people than the conference room could host. The format of the session allocated a lot of time for discussion and debate. It was very much geared towards the question of how to harness web 2.0 and mobile technologies and how to develop new knowledge management systems favoring knowledge sharing and co-creation rather than just storage.

A day before the end of the 5th World Water Forum, Julie Aubriot, in charge of advocacy at Action against Hunger talks about the Right to Water.

Several presentations were made during the Forum, each one dealing with their own local issues and experiences as they tried to increase transparency in their daily water operations. The discussions centred on the right of the public to have unfettered information about their water quality, water pricing and environmental compliance issues.

“Think outside the water box!” says Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO about the 3rd World Water Assessment Programme (WAPP) report launched yesterday at the World Water Forum, referring to the need to set up mechanisms for more local consultation and involvement of all players (from businesses to environment activists) to face climate and development issues related to water.

The right to water and sanitation are often considered as a block but it is not surprising that right to water is much more mentioned than the right to sanitation:
- Water is pure and sanitation is impure…
- The right to sanitation needs to be very much adapted to cultural specificities …
- The existence of toilets in itself is not a sufficient indicator