Lifeng LI is the Director of Land and Water Division, Food Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), leading FAO’s work on soils, land, water, geospatial and climate financing through partnership with the Adaptation Fund and acting as the FAO Focal Point to UNCCD Convention and Ramsar Convention.  He has over 15 years of experience on water policy, river basin and freshwater ecosystems management through his works in World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Wetlands International, as well expertise of climate financing, national climate planning & programming and country readiness to access climate financing through his works in the Green Climate Fund (GCF).  He holds a PhD in physical geography from Chinese Academy of Sciences in China. 

Sasha has nearly 35 years of experience in international assistance and policy development in agriculture water and environment/natural resource management. Currently, she is the Deputy Director and Head of Water at the UN Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO), leading programs on sustainable land and water management and governance, data and information, One Health and anti-microbial resistance (AMR) in the environment, and integrated water resources management with linkages to climate, health, and food and nutrition security. She formerly served as Senior Advisor to the Minister (Administrator) at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and as Secretariat of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), where she directed and managed international environmental health and water programs, strategized in the development of rules and guidelines on point-source and diffuse pollution controls for protecting health and the environment through the GEF Caribbean Wastewater Revolving Fund and the Millennium Challenge Corporation Cabo Verde Compact on sustainable water infrastructure financing. She is now on the Governing Boards of the World Water Council and the CGIAR’s Water Land Ecosystems, and UNEP Global Partnerships on nutrient and wastewater management, circular economy, and is implementing and supervising a substantial set of country projects. She published, sponsored and peer-reviewed extensively on international water issues, such as the UN World Water Development Reports, FAO-WHO Wastewater Reuse Guidelines for Agriculture, FAO reports on Agriculture-Nature Based Solutions, Wealth of Waste: The Economics of Wastewater Reuse, Desalination and Agriculture, Agriculture Water Quality Guidelines for China, and the OECD country Water Governance reviews.

Dr Grobicki recently stepped down as Deputy Director of External Affairs at the Green Climate Fund, which assists developing countries in adaptation and mitigation practices to counter climate change. A chemical engineer by background, Dr Grobicki has researched water quality and the circular economy of water. From 2009 to 2015 she headed the Global Water Partnership as its Executive Secretary, based in Sweden, and then served as the Deputy Secretary General of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. She holds a PhD in Biochemical Engineering as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Applied Economics. She has written many papers, reports and publications on science and technology policy, water resources and earth systems, most recently as a Coordinating Lead Author of the 6th Global Environmental Outlook.  She is now a senior water advisor to FAO.

Andy Roby is Senior Water Security Adviser in the FCDO.  He has 37 years’ experience in international development and trade, includes long periods working in the Caribbean, Africa and Asia (Jamaica, Cameroon and Indonesia), in the European Commission, timber industry and UK Dept for International Trade.  He has spent most of his career in what is now the UK FCDO where he has led international water policy work since 2019.

Guillaume BENOIT is a general engineer of French nationality whose field of expertise is on cross-cutting issues related to natural resources management, sustainable agricultural and rural development, food security and climate change.

He is a member of the French Academy of Agriculture, of the scientific committees of the Moroccan Coalition for Water (COALMA) and of the AAA initiative (Adaptation of African Agriculture). He is also vice-president of the Blue Plan for Environment and Development in the Mediterranean.

He chairs the "Water, Soil, Agroecology and Food Security" working group within the French Water Partnership and is the general rapporteur of the SESAME seminars, a North-South platform for reflection on water and food security in the Mediterranean and the Sahel, co-led by the High Councils of the French and Moroccan Ministries of Agriculture and ranging from science to policies via the field.

Conchita is a Civil Engineer by the Polytechnic University of Madrid (Spain), with speciality in Hydraulics and Energy. To date, she has developed  all his professional activity in the world of water. After her time in the  private sector, she became a civil servant. As an official she has held various positions in the Center for Hydrographic Studies of CEDEX,  involved in several projects in physical modeling at the hydraulics laboratory, then involved in  floods risk management  and finally coordinating the international activities of the Center. In  2013  she took the position of  Deputy Assistant Director in the Sub-Directorate General of Planning and Sustainable Use of Water in the General Directorate of Water of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition, from where  she mainly was involved in the promotion and regulation  of water reuse, and application of earth observation on water planning. Since  October 2019 she took a new position in the Support Unit to the General Director of Water, where she  coordinates the international water issues.

Petra Hellegers is professor and chair of the Water Resources Management group at Wageningen University and Research. She has extensive experience in the economic analysis of water (allocation) issues in relation to food security and in making trade-offs between incommensurable (financial and social) values of water explicit in various countries, such as in Egypt, India, Jordan, Morocco, Mozambique, Ukraine and Yemen. She is fascinated by the political nature of valuing water and the difficulties of irrigation water pricing and irrigation subsidies reform.  She leads a group of 25 staff members and more than 30 PhD candidates working in the field of agricultural water management, water governance and contested knowledges from a socio-technical approach.

Marco Arcieri is an Officer of the Southern Italy Hydrographic District Authority - MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT. Earlier to that, he has been working for the National Institute of Agriculture, a research institute of the MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE. In his professional experience he visited more than 40 Countries worldwide, in order to implement international research projects and attend various Workshops and Meetings, both as a key note speaker and/or as an invited guest. During his scientific career he produced various papers for peer reviewed Journals, dealing with issues regarding sustainable agriculture, water resources management and control of desertification. His research interests are focused on ET and crop water requirements assessment, water saving techniques and drought prediction by means of climatic data. He’s Vice President Honoraire of ICID and Chair of the ICID PERMANENT FINANCE COMMITTEE. Also, on behalf of ICID he’s a member of the Steering Committee of UN FAO Program WASAG - GLOBAL FRAMEWORK ON WATER SCARCITY and is a PERMANENT OBSERVER to UN Agencies FAO, IFAD and WMO.

James joined IUCN in 2009 as the Water Management Advisor.  Previously he was based in Fiji at the Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission (SPC-GSD) as the Integrated Water Resource Management Adviser.  As Director of IUCN’s Global Water Programme, James focused on working with a wide range of partners and stakeholders to advance water governance and management for people and nature. Since IUCN’s reorganisation in early 2022 he is now the Head of IUCN’s Water and Land Management Team within the Centre for Society and Governance.He is an irrigation engineer with degrees in rural development, science and politics, irrigation engineering, and a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering focussing on groundwater management in the Aral Sea Basin.  He has worked on water management for 20 years in over 25 countries worldwide and sits on the governance committee of the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol, the Board of the Alliance for Water Stewardship, the Board of the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation, as a Technical Advisor to the Climate Bonds Initiative, serves on CDP’s Water Security Advisory Council and is a member of the Advisory Board to the Dutch Governments Valuing Water Initiative. In October 2020 he was selected as a Member of the European Commission's Platform on Sustainable Finance.

Anthony (Tony) Slatyer is a consultant in water policy and governance.  Tony is a founding member of the Water Policy Group. He is currently engaged as Special Adviser on Water to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), and as Water Policy and Strategy Adviser to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). His other current water sector roles include being a member of the Advisers group to the High Level Experts and Leaders Panel on Water and Disasters (HELP) and member of the UNESCO-Water Future Task Force on Science-Policy Interlinkages. Tony’s professional background is as a senior official in the Australian Government for which he has been awarded the Public Service Medal for services to national water policy.