We are delighted to welcome you to the second Water4All WOLLs in-person meeting, taking place on 26-27 November in Banyuls-sur-Mer (France), hosted by BRGM at the Observatoire Océanologique (1 avenue Pierre Fabre 66650 Banyuls-sur-Mer. The venue can be reached by train, 2 hours from Barcelona-Sants station and 2.5 hours from the Montpellier Station).
This event marks the first full-network gathering since the Brussels launch and the culmination of the first cycle of the WOLLs Network Webinar Series. The meeting will bring together WOLL practitioners and partners to:
- Consolidate the learning outcomes from the webinar series
- Exchange on challenges, achievements, and lessons learned across WOLLs
- Explore practical approaches to urgent water issues such as scarcity, competing uses, and climate change impacts in the Pyrénées Orientales region
- Build skills and knowledge through interactive workshops on citizen engagement, financing, governance, co-design, and data management
- Strengthen connections with key stakeholders, including ESA, EU representatives, and EU-funded projects.
Programme higlights:
Main events:
Wednesday, 26 November (Full Day)
WOLLs In-Person Meeting
8.30 - 8.50: Registration
8.50 - 10.00: Opening and keynote session
- Welcome speech by BRGM and Water Europe
- WOLLs in the Water4All Partnership (Benjamin Lopez - Water4All CEO, Water Europe)
Keynotes:
10.30 - 12.30: Workshop session
1. Exploring financial solutions (120’), IMDEA (Marcos Garcia)
Explore financial challenge: how to overcome the financial barriers for the sustained activities of WOLLS. The main idea is to provide useful materials on financial opportunities while encouraging the discussion of alternative financial instruments to support them in improving financial performance.
12.30 - 13.30 Lunch break
13.30 - 18.00: Workshops sessions
2. Citizen engagement, governance and stakeholder engagement (90’), Water Europe; City of Mechelen (Alexandra Winderickx)
- Inspiration session based on the example of the city of Mechelen. The workshop will present tools to facilitate citizen engagement and lessons learned from their use in the city of Mechelen and will facilitate the exchange of experiences acquired in other WOLLs
- Parallel workshop to exchange experience on governance and stakeholder engagement.
3. Value proposition: co-designing water resilience solutions (90’), VITO (Inge Genne)
How can living labs act as an accelerator for innovation ? Living labs as key actors to develop a value proposition to guide investments in : Nature based solutions, Blue green investments.
4. Walking together towards water efficiency, reuse, and resilience. The roadmap and the capacity development programs on WOLL maturity and impact (90’), LNEC (Maria João Rosa, Catarina Silva) and CEW (Uchechi Obinna)
This workshop introduces the roadmap for creating and maintaining a successful WOLL to boost the transition to a water-smart society. The roadmap outlines a step-by-step process for monitoring, assessing, and improving both WOLL maturity and WOLL impact. The session offers an opportunity to gather feedback on these tools and to present the forthcoming 2026 task, which will provide a shared pathway to support voluntary WOLLs in applying the roadmap and frameworks.
Evening: Social dinner and wine tasting
Thursday, 27 November (Full Day)
WOLLs In-Person Meeting
Morning: Gathering of WOLLs with the Pyrénées Orientales WOLL members joining the discussions, offering a unique opportunity for exchange and networking. Each participating WOLL is asked to prepare a poster presenting his own WOLL and will have an opportunity to exchange with other WOLLS during two poster sessions (Possibility to print posters in advance at the meeting facility if sent at Ines Martel (i.martel@brgm.fr) in pdf A0 format before 19 November)! The poster layout is free but should cover the following aspect: history of the WOLL, main missions and activities, governance and present some key achievements.
Afternoon: Participants will be invited to a field visit to the PO WOLL site, directly connecting discussions with the urgent local water challenges.
Return to the Perpignan railway station by bus at 17.30.
Side events:
Tuesday, 25 November (Half Day – Afternoon)
Annual Pillar D Meeting (only open to Pillar D members)
- Subtask leader presentations on progress and challenges since the last Pillar D meeting
- Roundtables: task-based planning for the end of Phase 2 and coordination towards Phase 3
Friday, 28 November (Full day)
Pyrénées Orientales WOLL Launch Conference (in French only, mainly for local partners)
- Official launch of the Pyrénées Orientales WOLL
- Presentations and discussions with local stakeholders