The King presents the Stockholm Water Prize

On Wednesday 26 August, The King presented the Stockholm Water Prize 2015 to Rajendra Singh from India. Earlier in the day, The King and The Crown Princess attended the seminar Rainwater – Sky's the Limit, at which this year's winner was one of the speakers.

During the morning, The King and The Crown Princess attended the seminar Rainwater – Sky's the Limit at Stockholm City Conference Centre, Norra Latin. The seminar was part of Stockholm Water Week, which this year had the theme Water for Development.

The subject of the seminar was the necessity of a degree of rainwater management. This year's prize winner Rajendra Singh opened the seminar and spoke about how he and his colleagues are using an ancient technique to build dams that collect rainwater. This water can then be channelled down into the ground instead of evaporating away. This has resulted in the groundwater level rising, making freshwater and water for agricultural uses available in many villages in the drought-hit Indian state of Rajasthan.

Rajendra Singh was awarded the 2015 Stockholm Water Prize for his innovative work with rainwater and his determined efforts to improve living conditions for the most vulnerable people.

The seminar concluded with a panel discussion, during which seminar participants Rajendra Singh, Professor Malin Falkenmark (SIWI), Jeremy Bird (Director General of IWMI), Claudia Sadoff (Lead Economist at South Asia Water Resources Group World Bank) and Dominic Waughray (World Economic Forum) spoke about the importance of using rainwater to reduce our vulnerability to both droughts and flooding. We need to change our approach and use new types of solutions. This involves finding local solutions in order to succeed, as well as understanding that the challenge is a global one.

In the evening, The King presented the 2015 Stockholm Water Prize to Rajendra Singh during a ceremony at Stockholm City Hall.   

During the following banquet, The King gave a speech of thanks in which he said:

"Water issues affect us in different ways, depending on where we live and what resources we have. Ultimately they are a matter of survival – for all of us. The situation is urgent. But it is far from hopeless."

You can read the speech in full here.

World Water Week 2015

On 23-28 August, experts, researchers and organisations from around the world came to Stockholm to discuss water-related issues during World Water Week, a global water conference arranged by Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI). This year marked the 25th anniversary.

The King is patron of the Stockholm Water Prize.