Alicante to host a Dialogue on the Future of Water

Its outcomes will inform Spain’s National Long-Term Strategy and the Conference on the Future of Europe

The Alicante Museum of Contemporary Art (MACA) and the City Council will host a Dialogue on the Future of Water on 22-23 November. The conference aims to bring together prominent experts and policymakers so that they will not only debate the current and future issues surrounding the availability and supply of fresh water in Spain but will also come up with concrete proposals to be incorporated into the country’s strategic plan of development. Likewise, it is expected that the resulting proposals will also be incorporated into the Conference on the Future of Europe.

Although the event has a national scope, the partners behind its organization come from all levels of the European administrations. The Alicante City Council is partnering with the Spanish government, the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Valencian Regional Government (Generalitat), Aguas de Alicante, the UA, the Polytechnic of València, the Bancaja Foundation and the Water Economy Forum.

Part of a series of ongoing dialogues on topics of future development

The conference is also open to citizens, who can participate both in person or virtually after registration. The objective of the forum is to enrich the public debate and offer citizens the possibility of participating directly in the conversation about the country that we can and want to be in the post-covid world. The ideas that the speakers and citizens present during the sessions will be incorporated into the National Long-Term Strategy prepared by the National Office for Prospective and Strategy of the Government as part of the Spain 2050 project and the Conference on the Future of Europe.

In addition to the discussion tables, two citizen workshops will be held designed to listen to the ideas of the population, take note of them and incorporate them into the different documents and strategies for the future. The first of these workshops will discuss how to promote more sustainable use of water (22 November, 5:00 pm), while the second will reflect on what we, as a society, would be willing to do to reduce water consumption (23 November, 11:00 am).

The Dialogues on the Future are an initiative of the Spanish Government, the European Commission, the European Parliament and 70 other public institutions that want to contribute to promoting plural, informed and constructive conversations on the opportunities and challenges that the post-Covid world will bring.

In fact, the Alicante Dialogue is just one of a series of 17 such dialogues, centred on various topics, each one taking place in a different region of Spain in the period between September and December.