Lessons Learned: Women and Climate Change

by Lurette Paulime While women represent more than 50 percent of the worldwide population, they are the most affected by the adverse impact of climate change. In many developing countries, women are the ones responsible for the agricultural production. Those who live in rural areas make substantial contributions in promoting sustainable development. Even with scarce...

Outlining the Panels

- Robin Owings As I sit in long meetings on water privatization, scarcity, and ethics, I have taken to documenting panelists (government officials, NGO heads, citizen leaders) with blind contour drawings. I look directly at the subjects and record them using a continuous line. Each line forms a caricature, reflecting the elements of those figures such as slouching shoulders, facial expressions,...

So what is a Water Forum anyway?

Those familiar with the UN Climate Treaty (UNFCCC) or the Convention on Biological Diversity covered by might be confused by the World Water Forum.  They should be.  It is a very different animal but an important one none-the less.  Unlike the UNFCCC or other international treaty regimes, there is no treaty; there is no single agency or Secretariat, in fact the UN plays a very small role if...

Belo Monstro: a first hand account of hydro-politics in Brazil

COA student Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler is currently in Altamira, Brazil, from where he sent us this dispatch. As an delegation heads off to the World Water Forum in France, this piece serves as a poignant reminder as to what is at stake in the world of hydropolitics. You can read more about Jivan's experiences on his blog.  ***** The Xingu and the dam run side by side through the social fabric of...