The International Soil and Water Forum, organised by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, brought together over 500 participants from 55+ countries in Bangkok in December 2024.

Shared experiences under the four thematic areas: i) managing water scarcity, ii) reversing land degradation and boosting land restoration, iii) sustainable soil management and iv) integrated climate resilient and, soil and water management, provided a holistic overview of the status, challenges, best practices and potential opportunities for achieving water and food security while maintaining healthy ecosystems.

Key government officials from countries such as Pakistan, Thailand, Egypt, Peru and Nepal highlighted the importance of decision-making based on scientific evidence and acknowledged data availability, accessibility, affordability and utilisation as major issues in developing countries. Comprising of 3 plenary sessions, 16 thematic sessions and 9 side events, the forum was successful in getting the ‘Ministerial Declaration on managing water scarcity and reversing soil degradation for sustainable and resilient agrifood systems’ endorsed by ministers and representatives from 27 countries.  

During the forum, Peter Droogers and Tania Imran from FutureWater presented the ongoing work on Water Accounting under FAO’s Water Scarcity Program running across 5 countries (Thailand, Lao PDR, Vietnam, Mongolia and Indonesia). In collaboration with FAO’s NENA office, FutureWater also hosted the Inter-Regional Policy Dialogue on WEFE nexus and presented the newly developed tool ‘REWEFe’ (Rapid evaluation of Water, Energy, Food and ecosystem) which quantifies the inter- and intra-linkages within the four sectors.