How can you create a conference experience that promotes social justice and equity in the water sector?

1 Define your goals and values

Before you start planning your conference, you need to have a clear vision of what you want to achieve and why. What are the main challenges and opportunities in the water sector that you want to address? How do they relate to social justice and equity issues, such as access, affordability, governance, participation, and human rights? How do you want your conference to contribute to positive change and impact? What are the values and principles that guide your work and inform your decisions? Having a clear and coherent framework will help you align your conference objectives, themes, speakers, and activities with your social justice and equity goals.

2 Diversify your speakers and participants

One of the most important ways to promote social justice and equity in your conference is to ensure that your speakers and participants reflect the diversity of the water sector and the communities it serves. This means inviting and supporting speakers and participants from different backgrounds, disciplines, sectors, regions, genders, ages, and experiences. It also means creating a space where they can share their knowledge, insights, and stories in a respectful and meaningful way. To do this, you need to consider how to reach out to potential speakers and participants, how to reduce barriers to participation, such as cost, language, and accessibility, and how to facilitate dialogue and interaction among them.

4 Address power dynamics and conflicts

A conference that aims to promote social justice and equity in the water sector cannot ignore the power dynamics and conflicts that exist within and between different actors and stakeholders. As a conference organizer, you need to be aware of how power and conflict affect your conference design, implementation, and evaluation. For example, how do you balance the interests and expectations of your sponsors, partners, speakers, and participants? How do you deal with controversial or sensitive topics or situations? How do you ensure that your conference does not reinforce or reproduce existing inequalities or injustices? To address these questions, you need to adopt a critical and reflexive approach, where you acknowledge your own biases and assumptions, listen to different perspectives and feedback, and seek to resolve any issues or tensions in a constructive and respectful way.

5 Evaluate your impact and outcomes

Finally, to create a conference experience that promotes social justice and equity in the water sector, you need to evaluate your impact and outcomes. This means measuring and communicating how your conference has contributed to advancing your goals and values, as well as identifying the challenges and lessons learned along the way. You can use various tools and methods to collect and analyze data, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, observations, and testimonials. You can also use different formats and channels to share your results and recommendations, such as reports, newsletters, blogs, podcasts, and videos. By evaluating and disseminating your impact and outcomes, you can demonstrate your accountability and credibility, as well as inspire and inform others who share your vision and mission.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?