8.30

Coffee & registration

9.30

Opening and tour-du-table

S        Jamal Saghir, Director of Energy and Water, World Bank ~ Overview of recent developments in the water supply and sanitation sector

S        Tour de table on donor MDG strategies, plans, and portfolios

11.00

Coffee

11.30

Monitoring and evaluation

Water sector professionals have long grappled with the challenges associated with “measurement.”  Issues as diverse as data quality and reliability, metrics aggregation and scale of measurement, standardization and comparability of indicators, and the translation of data into meaningful information and analysis arise again and again.  The desire for the “perfect” must constantly be balanced against the limits of the “practical” in terms of available resources, capacity, and political will to focus on complete and accurate measurement in the context of more compelling objectives in the sector. An Informal Discussion on Water Sector Monitoring and Evaluation in Stockholm on January 31-February 1, 2007 will focus exclusively on these issues. This session will serve to report back on the issues discussed in the Stockholm meeting to a larger group of donors.

13.00

Lunch

Lunch speaker: Vahid Alavian, Water Advisor World Bank on the broader Water Agenda

14.30

Do we need a global action plan for water and sanitation

In a reaction to the 2006 UNDP Human Development Report, DFID issued a call to arms to invest more money in water and sanitation, ensure that money is spent effectively and fairly, put the right structures in place to make progress. The call is centered around ‘five ones’ (global report, global meeting, national plan, national coordinating body, UN channel). This session is focused on gauging the support of other donor agencies for the ‘five ones’ and how to operationalize them. The session could feed into proposed side meetings on WSS during annual meetings.

15.45

Coffee break

16.15

Improving performance of public water utilities: Establish a Global Water Operators Partnership

The UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation in its Compendium of Actions proposed a Water Operator Partnership, which would strengthen local water services. Since then, the UN Secretary-General has requested UN-Habitat to take the lead in implement this initiative. UN-Habitat has had bilateral discussion with various donors, has organized regional stakeholder meetings, and has developed a proposal for establishing a Global Water Operator Partnership. This session is focused on discussing the future directions of a potential Water Operator Partnership and its links to other initiatives in the sector. 

17.30

Wrap-up

18.00

Closing