Water Engineering and Development Centre

5 Jul 2018

41st WEDC International Conference – opens 9 July in Kenya

The 41st WEDC International Conference opens at Egerton University in Kenya. Follow the conversation on Twitter: #WEDC41

Yesterday evening, Monday 9 July, the 41st WEDC International Conference opened at Egerton University in Kenya. The Conference is a valued and respected platform for reflection, debate and exchange of knowledge and ideas that are rooted in practice. Our programme includes three days of presentations and discussion of peer reviewed content. This is alongside two days of focused capacity development workshops designed to develop skills and knowledge in relevant areas, which have been jointly identified and developed with sector stakeholders.

The programme includes an exhibition, side events, and an exciting social programme, all designed to maximize interaction and networking opportunities. We aim to include topics related to WASH in the broadest sense. Our event is valued by the sector, because:

  • Conference sessions are facilitated by sector experts, who dedicate equal time to presentation and facilitated discussion ensuring that key lessons are identified, and that the collective experiences from participants are shared, enhancing the learning of both presenters and the audience.
  • Our focus on sharing of practice and experiences seeks to actively encourage constructive dialogue and debate between researchers and practitioners. This helps to ensure that future research addresses the needs of practitioners and that practitioners are aware of the latest research findings.
  • Our open access database of conference papers is a unique repository within the sector and enables sharing of conference proceedings and experiences beyond the conference audience with around 20,000 downloads per month.
  • Our audience is predominantly (more than 70 percent) from low- and middle-income countries, as such experience is shared between people working in similar contexts, where lessons and good practice are more readily transferrable.