We are pleased to announce that the 2^nd International Conference of the Global Network of Water Museums (WAMU-NET will be the official acronym) will be held in the Netherlands, 14-18 May, in the historic town of ‘s-Hertogenbosch.

The historic town of ‘s Hertogenbosch

Kring Vrienden in ‘s-Hertogenbosch are hosting and organizing this second and important conference of the network. The historic walled-town of ‘s-Hertogenbosch is centrally located in the Netherlands and is particularly rich in water history. It houses more than 1000 official monuments and one of these, the ‘Old Town Hall’, will be the beautiful venue for next year’s Conference. The hosting party of the 2018 Conference will be the Kring Vrienden van ‘s-Hertogenbosch association, in cooperation with the Municipality of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Province of Noord Brabant, IHP-HWRP (the Dutch National IHP Committee), and with the participation of Waterschap Aa & Maas, and Waterschap de Dommel. 

Kring Vrienden of ‘s-Hertogenbosch (who are about to inaugurate their new Water Museum!), are finalizing in cooperation with Civiltà dell’Acqua and UNESCO Venice Office a stimulating Conference Programme, including a number of interesting field visits to some other Dutch water museums.

The new Water Museum to be in ‘s Hertogenbosch

Also, this conference will include specific sessions on thematic issues, in addition to the one dedicated to presentations of new WAMU-NET members. More news on thematic issues will be sent soon, so you may apply to make a presentation in a specific session, if you wish so.

Pre-registration: since there will be a limited number of seats available in the conference room and for the field visits, you are invited to send us your manifestation of interest (also indicating the number of your delegates) at your earliest convenience, and not later than the 20^th of December 2017. Please send your expression of interest to Eriberto Eulisse: direzione@civiltacqua.org . Only after pre-registration, you will receive further information on the Conference.

As you probably already know, following the Venice conference the idea of establishing the Global Network of Water Museum under the auspices of UNESCO-IHP was presented to the IHP Bureau on the occasion of its 55^th Session in Paris last June. This idea was warmly welcomed and supported and the IHP Bureau requested us to prepare, with the support of the IHP Secretariat, a specific Resolution of the IHP Intergovernmental Council which would be submitted and discussed on the occasion of the forthcoming IHP Council Session in June 2018.

That is why the next conference in May will be crucial to agree on the final structure of the Global Network and on the final documents to be submitted to the IHP Council. We are already working on a first draft of this Resolution which, once approved, will let us start planning together the future actions of our network under the auspices of UNESCO-IHP.

In the meantime, you may download the following article on the Global Network, which has been recently published in Water Front (The Stockholm International Water Institute official magazine):

http://www.siwi.org/publications/stockholm-water-front-no-4-2017/

More articles may be published in the same magazine in the coming months, focusing more specifically on your museums, and according to your availability.