How Swedish Water House works

Swedish Water House works by creating spaces where Swedish actors can meet, exchange perspectives, and engage with global water issues in a practical and informed way.

Its role is to connect people, knowledge, and processes across sectors and scales, helping Swedish expertise contribute to international agendas while ensuring that global developments are meaningful and usable in a Swedish context.

Photo: Matej Kastelic

Bringing people together

At the heart of Swedish Water House’s work is convening. SWH brings together actors from government, academia, business, and civil society in neutral and trusted settings where dialogue can take place across institutional and sectoral boundaries. These convening formats range from open public seminars to more targeted dialogues and roundtables, depending on the issue and audience.

By creating inclusive spaces for exchange, SWH supports shared understanding of complex water challenges and helps identify areas where cooperation is both possible and valuable. These forums are designed to encourage listening as much as speaking, and to build relationships that extend beyond individual events.

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Sharing knowledge and insights

Global water governance is shaped by rapidly evolving policy frameworks, scientific evidence, and regulatory developments. Swedish Water House plays a key role in interpreting these developments and translating them into accessible insights for Swedish actors.

This includes curating knowledge from international policy processes, climate and biodiversity negotiations, and European and global water initiatives, and presenting it in ways that are relevant to Swedish priorities and contexts. Knowledge-sharing is deliberately two-way: Swedish experiences, research, and governance approaches are also shared internationally through SWH’s networks and engagements.

By working across scales, Swedish Water House helps ensure that Swedish actors are not only informed about global developments, but also able to engage strategically with them.

BHUJ, INDIA – JANUARY 5, 2025: Process of tissue staining. Artisanal textile production, work in India. Indian workers paint fabrics by hand in village near Bhuj, Gujarat. Handmade clothes. Hard work

Supporting collaboration

Beyond dialogue and knowledge exchange, Swedish Water House supports collaboration among actors with shared interests or challenges. Depending on context, this may take the form of thematic workshops, short-term co-creation formats, pilots or testbeds, or longer-term collaboration groups, including multi-stakeholder groups where relevant.

These collaborations provide an impartial space for exploring solutions that cut across sectors and disciplines. Past initiatives have addressed issues such as water in textiles, pharmaceuticals, forests and landscapes, food systems, and finance, demonstrating how collective approaches can support innovation, learning, and long-term impact.

Through this work, Swedish Water House helps connect Swedish strengths with global water challenges, supporting cooperation that is grounded in practice and informed by policy and science.

Working within SIWI, Swedish Water House contributes to broader international engagement while maintaining a strong national focus. Its way of working reflects the belief that meaningful progress on water requires dialogue, shared understanding, and sustained collaboration across sectors and borders.