“More than 2,600 humanitarians and policymakers meet in Stockholm this week to hash out ideas about how to tackle escalating problems surrounding water scarcity and access to sanitation, particularly in urban environments,” AlertNet reports.

“World Water Week delegates are seeking long-term sustainable solutions, which will transform how water resources are managed. The goal is to try and improve the lives of almost 900 million people who lack access to safe water, and more than 2.7 billion who lack access to basic sanitation, according to United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) statistics,” the news agency writes. “For many delegates, World Water Week will be about networking amid preparations for the high-level Rio+20 United Nations (U.N.) Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012,” according to AlertNet (Mollins, 8/19).