2010 Water future Conference

On March 29-31, 2010, “2010 Water Future Conference” was held in Beijing, organized by Water Future Steering Committee and Pepperdine University. The theme of this conference was “Water and Action”. It was the third conference  after a first session of “Future Search Conference on Water Conservation for Beijing’s Future” held in March 2008 and a second session on “Appreciative Inquiry on Water and Behavior” in March 2009. There were 100 participants from different stakeholders joining the conference, including government, academics, NGOs, enterprises, legal agencies, media and public. Beijing Arbitration Commission (BAC) provided the venue for the conference, Ms. Wang Hongsong,  Secretary-General of BAC attended the conference opening session and gave a welcome speech.

The conference adopted the “2 + 1” model, i.e. 2 days of training on project design and work plan development and 1 day water and action summit. At the beginning, Ms. Zhang Junru from Water Future Steering Committee introduced the history of Water Future Conference. During the training session, the program team members from Pepperdine University introduced the action learning method, and acted as facilitators to provide guidance to the group discussion. All participants were divided into five groups to discuss the following five projects proposed by the Steering Committee: how long can we go without water; water walking coalition; water and city layout; use water one more time; green office-water culture experience. In addition, one new initiative was addressed by the participants, named water facebook. During two days of discussion, every group developed a project work plan and reported on it during water and action summit.

The third day summit set up a platform for different stakeholders to share information on water and action. Dr. Chris Worley from Pepperdine University introduced the cooperation between CANGO and Pepperdine University, Mr. Huang Haoming, Executive Director of CANGO and Dr. Ann Feyerherm from Pepperdine University gave opening speeches on behalf of the sponsor organizations. Their speeches expressed recognition and support to water future conference as well as hope for water future conference development. Mr. Ran Lianqi from Policy and Regulation Department of Beijing Water Authority, Dr. Li Guibao from Chinese Hydraulic Engineering Society, Dr. Li Kuixiao from Beijing Drainage, Ms. Li Li from Environment Friendly Charity Association; Ms. Wang Yongchen from Green Earth Volunteers, Mr. Tian Kun from Beijing Taifu Law Firm, Mr. Zhou Yu, environmental photographer shared their actions on water conservation. Questions and answers followed after the presentations. In addition, all participants experienced open space environment, many participants addressed their topics and held group discussion. The topic of development of water future conference attracted a lot of participants, many valuable suggestions on steering committee organizational structure and fundraising were given by the group members.

At the end of the conference, Dr. Ann Feyerherm from Pepperdine University issued certificates to the volunteers who provided service to the conference. The Water Future Steering Committee and the Program Team of Pepperdine University exchanged gifts.

In general, the Water Future Steering Committee is the creator of a platform where experts interact with civil society and administrators with the public. We opened up a space where people of different areas can share information, discuss opinions, identify options and make commitment. Our focus is not on the problems in the past but the possibilities in the future. We are not advocating what other people should do. We are discovering what we can do. We are trying to help people understand the situation, understand the government and give them an opportunity to participate in building the future.