The 9th China Europe Water Platform (CEWP) High-Level Dialogue Conference took place in New York, on the 21st of March 2023, back-to-back to the United Nations Water Conference. The conference was organized by the Ministry of Environment and Climate Action of Portugal (European Co Secretariat), with the support of the Chinese Ministry of Water Resources (Chinese Co Secretariat) and the European Commission. The Meeting was jointly led by the Minister of Environment and Climate Action of Portugal, Mr. Duarte Cordeiro, by the Minister of Water Resources of China, Mr. Li Guoying and by the European Commission Vice-President Dubravka Šuica.
After the Ministerial Dialogue with interventions by the representatives from the European Commission, Portugal, China, The Netherlands, Hungary, Finland, Malta, Sweden and France, two keynote speeches were given about “SDG6 Implementation – why acceleration is needed?” by Mr. Loïc Fauchon, President of the World Water Council and Mr. Lifeng Li, Director of Land and Water Division, FAO.
After the Co-Secretariats’ activities report, focusing on the Policy Guidances bridging with the Policy recommendations, a Ministerial Declaration was signed underlining the will to continue and go deeper on the priority areas for further cooperation. In the declaration, European countries and China mandate the Joint Steering Committee to develop and approve, in 2023, a bi-annual work programme for 2023-2024, identifying the priority areas and projects to be developed, and take note of the Recommendations of the Policy Dialogue Process and to keep them into consideration, when designing and implementing water policies and instruments.
