Opening address of the 11th Stockholm Water Symposium

Water security for the 21st century – building bridges through dialogue It is an honour and a great pleasure for me to address you at the opening of the 11th Stockholm Water Symposium. I am here in the place of the Swedish ministers most concerned: Kjell Larsson, the minister for environment and Maj-Inger Klingvall, the minister for development cooperation, who are involved in the annual Swedish cabinet recess to agree the priorities in next year's budget. Let me extend their and add my own congratulations to Professor Takashi Asano for his well deserved award of the 2001 Stockholm Water Prize. We all appreciate your important contribution to our common goal: to achieve a good and efficient use and reuse of water. Also I wish to commend the Stockholm International Water Institute, SIWI, and the other contributors for making this week in Stockholm not only a prominent event itself, but most importantly helping to put water in its proper place on the international development and environment agendas.