Some 10,000 government officials, representatives of international organizations such as the World Bank, and U.N. organizations such as UNESCO and UNEP, along with water experts, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the media are slated to attend the meeting, many more than the number of participants at the 2nd World Water Forum (The Hague, 2000). More than 1,300 journalists have already registered to cover the Forum. In a break with the traditional approaches to such meetings, the organizers are asking participants to come not to debate issues, but to describe actions they have taken and make concrete commitments to future actions.

Hideaki Oda, Secretary General of the secretariat of the 3rd World Water Forum, adds "I am very proud of the fact that the Forum’s program was shaped by many around the world through the Water Voice Project, the Virtual Water Forum, regional and international meetings - this has been a true "ground-up approach" in organizing this event.

Nowadays, 800 million people are going hungry because they cannot afford to buy food. More than 1.2 billion people currently lack access to safe water and 3 billion have inadequate sanitation. This leads to diseases that kill more than 5 million people each year, more than 2 million of them children under the age of five who succumb to diarrhea-related illnesses.