SIWI Reflections 2025: When Indigenous voices shape global water dialogue

What was the most meaningful thing you worked on in 2025?

There are many ways in which our work within the World Water Week team is meaningful, and for me, all the work we do alongside our partners carries real value. The work that had the greatest impact and excited me most in 2025 was delivering World Water Week’s first-ever High-Level Panel on Indigenous Voices, through our partnership with the Australian and Canadian governments.

2025 marked the third consecutive year of the Indigenous Peoples Focus at World Water Week. This focus aims to acknowledge and elevate the role of Indigenous Peoples, building on the success of events held in 2023 and 2024.

Why did it matter — what difference did it make, or will it make?

The High-Level Panel Indigenous Peoples at the Heart of Decision-Making: Lessons for Water, took place on Centre Stage during World Water Week. It was the first High-Level Panel at the Week to centre Indigenous voices, while also offering insights relevant to broader global contexts.

Delivered in partnership with Indigenous leaders, the session reflected the diversity of Indigenous experiences and governance systems across regions including the Arctic, the Pacific, and the Americas. One of the most powerful aspects of the panel was hearing the lived experiences of Indigenous women as water protectors, while also highlighting the depth of Indigenous water knowledge and its role in driving change across sectors.

By placing this knowledge and experience at the centre of World Water Week, the session called on the water community to commit to early, full, and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples in governance and decision-making — particularly in environmental management, cultural heritage protection, and climate action. This message is especially timely as we look ahead to a busy 2026, including the UN 2026 Water Conference and COP31.

A strong message from the Indigenous Peoples delegation resonated throughout the Week:
We have different tools and knowledge systems to ensure that Earth and its resources are cared for, the core values of respect, reciprocity, relationships, and responsibility are not confined to physical boundaries such as state lines or borders. Indigenous knowledge systems are fluid, dynamic, and of equal value to all other forms of knowledge

What are you excited to take forward into 2026?

2026 will be a pivotal year for the water community, with several major global events on the horizon. With World Water Week in August, followed by the UN 2026 Water Conference and COP31, I hope the Week will continue to serve as a space to collaborate, organize, and take action that feeds directly into these global processes.

I am excited to continue working with our partners and the wider water community to deliver a meaningful, proactive, and safe space for dialogue and action on the water and climate agenda.

You can watch the full High-Level Panel on our YouTube page