During the event “States General of Water Resources” held on the 1st of April 2019 at the Senate of the Republic – Sala Koch , we became aware of the International Call launched by the World Water Council (WWC) of Marseille for an expression of interest in nominating Cities and Countries to welcome the 10th World Water Forum in 2024.

The Centro Studi Alta Scuola, being the subject “Water”, immediately thought of Francis of Assisi and his Canticle of the Creatures and made contact with the Custos of the Sacred Convent who wrote us this letter.

Then we thought of combining the spiritual approach with the secular one linked to water and the rebirth of Florence after the flood of the Arno in 1966, with the idea of ​​also referring to the Italian genius of Leonardo Da Vinci and the Italian Renaissance.

Having obtained the availability of the Municipality of Florence with Assisi, we thus presented the expression of interest in December 2019.

In February 2020 we received the official communication of having entered the short list of final candidates with the invitation to submit an organizational and technical-scientific project proposal (BID) that we delivered on the 10th of September 2020 to the WWC of Marseille.

Unfortunately, the pandemic crisis prevented the Council Secretariat and the Evaluation Committee composed of Dale Jacobson, ASCE-USA (CHAIR) – Yoonjin Kim, Korea Water Forum, – Jorge Werneck, ADASA – Brasil Water Forum, which had announced to carry out a technical visit to verify the contents of the BID presented both in Florence and Assisi to come to Italy for the relevant feedback.

The award procedure is therefore still ongoing.

I want to thank here all those who collaborated and in particular the Mayor of Florence Dario Nardella, the Mayor of Assisi Stefania Proietti and the Custody of the Sacred Convent of San Francesco in the persons of His Custos Fra Mauro Gambetti (now Cardinal Gambetti) and Friar Antonello Fanelli delegate for Ecumenism Dialogue integrity of Creation.

Italy Water Forum

Endro MARTINI – President

* See web site: https://worldwaterforum.org/