Key takeaway points from #WaterAndBeyond high-level event

The European Commission Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA) and the Government of Slovenia – with the support of the Government of Portugal as the Presidency of the Council of the European Union  – organised the online event ‘Water and Beyond: EU transformative approaches for international partnerships’ from 18 to 21 January 2021.

The main objectives of this event were:

• to deliver insights on how to strengthen transboundary cooperation, build broader partnerships and trigger water investments in support of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement;
• to lay the groundwork for applying the European Union Priorities for International Partnerships in the water sector; and,
• to establish links with current the programming exercise and the Team Europe approach. 

Key takeaway points from the opening session:

• Water is important “for people, for nature, for our economies and our stability”, according to Marjeta Jager the Deputy Director-General of DG INTPA.
•  “Access to Water is together Health, a Right and Dignity”, complements Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, Member of the European Parliament.
• State Secretary Francisco André from Portugal underlined that “water is the most strategic resource of our societies, for the 21st century”, and as Slovenian State Secretary Stanislav Raščan said “Water is the only natural resource that has no substitute: the only substitute for water is water”.
• And despite the odds, “we are seeing only about half of the necessary investments in water to reach SDG 6”, said ECHO Commissioner Lenarčič.
• How to move forward? Through partnerships and highlighting water as an issue on its own right, but deeply intertwined with other topics. “Partnerships are a catalyst to achieve #SDG6”, said Annelise Avril. “The Team Europe Initiative is a good opportunity to give water the attention it deserves”, said Stanislav Raščan.
• “We need to support transboundary water cooperation and multilateral action on the water, like, for example, the UNECE’s Water Convention (…) crucial for good governance, mediation, and prevention of conflicts”, said Commissioner Lenarčič and complemented other speakers who emphasised the need to pursue legal frameworks and joint management for the transboundary water sources, particularly on groundwater.
• Commissioner Lenarčič indicated that now it is the time to reflect collectively on how to translate human rights to water and sanitation obligations to meaningful actions on the ground.
• More investments in water should be encouraged and leveraged. Every euro invested in water and sanitation returns 2 to 5.5 euros to the economy, through reduced collection time, health, education, water, and energy savings. With added positive benefits too for infrastructure, nature-based solutions, and society as a whole.
• What Slovenia will be striving for during its EU Council Presidency, is to embed water comprehensively across all aspects and facets of #EU's external action. The lessons learned from Sava river inter cooperation are that: 1) water should be an integrated part of every green deal alliance; and, 2) a holistic view of the management of water resources needs to be mainstream in all the political dimensions.
• Main ideas from Portugal’s experience to cut the financing gap are: 1) To be more efficient and do more with the money and resources we already have; 2) To involve the private sector and find new approaches; and, 3) To design new policies and put water matters at the centre of the international community’s agenda.
• For AquaFed, there are 2 areas where we can do better: one is pace, we need to move faster, and the other one is to create a bigger impact: to scale. For this, we need governance, regulations, skills and finance.

Key takeaway points from Session 1: Water as an equaliser: realising impact for human development

• “There is no possible human development without water”, said Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, Member of the European Parliament. Water sanitation and hygiene contribute to many human development objectives, and to the cycle of life, reminded us Kelly Ann Naylor, UNICEF’s Associate Director for Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene.
• Access to water is a health, human right, equality, and dignity issue. Water is critical to guarantee equality. “We're leaving people behind”, said Maria Neira, Director at WHO. Tripti Rai, Country Director of WaterAid Nepal, gave some examples of how “gender, age and disability pose a serious barrier to access water sanitation and hygiene”.
• Water and hygiene are the basis of public health. The impact of Covid-19 can threaten decades of progress in human development. Our response to Covid must include the strengthening of our resilience against the future sanitary crises: water access, sanitation, and hygiene. If we invest in WASH we reduce our vulnerability to any other type of pandemics that are threatening us.
• We heard from Ann Naylor that “There's solid evidence that WASH in schools improves students health and attendance, in particular of girls”. UNICEF and WHO have good working experience and guidelines on how WASH can be included in education or health partnerships. This can easily be taken forward.
• We were recalled that WASH is also a core part of the EU Gender Action Plan.
• We heard about examples of initiatives implemented by the EU and its partners in countries like Burkina Faso, Nepal and Moldova. Nepal has a one-house, one tap policy, which is to ensure that everybody has water in its house. This means working in remote places; we’ve seen that it really helps and enables women and girls, especially because they are mainly responsible for getting water.
• Way forward:

> See health as an investment and not as a cost. This is the right time to discuss this and influence investments “because we have different governments including the EU ones designating funds with new financial support to the Covid-19 recovery”, recalled Neira.

> Working outside of silos with other sectors, identifying common outcomes. This collaboration assures you to achieve a goal together.

> Adolescents are a key group and water and sanitation can be an incredible way to engage them to participate in positive practices in their communities.

Key takeaway points from Session 2: Water as a catalyst for cooperation: fostering trust and peace

• Different partners recalled how far transboundary management of riparian resources can be a driver for peace and security.
• Dominique Porter from EEAS explained that "water is the driving force of all nature. Let us use this force to strengthen peace and international cooperation. Working on shared resources can help mitigating conflicts and bring peace.” He recalled the example of coal and steel in Europe as the first step towards what is today the EU.
• Olga Algayerova, UNECE Executive Secretary, underlined that "water agreements and joint institutions provide indispensable backbones for effective cooperation, enabling sharing of economic, social and environmental benefits".
• Transboundary river basin management requires trust, political support, robust basin organisation, strong and coherent governance structure, contemporary management techniques, approaches and tools.
• We heard from multiple voices like Ben Ampomah, Executive Secretary of Water Resources Commission of Ghana (which acceded to the Water Convention in June 2020), that “The Water Convention’s globalization offers a unique opportunity to accelerate progress worldwide, and address some of the root challenges to transboundary cooperation. Accessions support development at national and transboundary by providing an enabling environment for investments and supporting water governance”.
• Mamman Nuhu recalled us the example of the Lake Chad Basin Commission that dates back to 1964 and was instrumental in conflict prevention and mediation in the region. An example worthwhile to explore, as others such as around the Sava river.
• This was perfectly summed up by a brilliant contraction from State Secretary Raščan: the EU can lead the transition by combining diplomacy, policy and cooperation.
• Way forward:

> Panellists emphasised the importance of integrated approaches, linking water management and conflict prevention plus support for water cooperation across borders and communities. The interlinkages should not be neglected as it proved to be very costly for the environment, societies and the economies explained Peter Burian, Ambassador for Central Asia.

Key takeaway points from Session 3: Bridging the financial gap: investing in SDG 6

• One of the main questions in this session was why there is a financial gap to reach SDG 6, if poor access to sanitation can cost countries up to 7% of their annual GDP, and, investing 1 euro in WASH returns 3.
• Dominique Gatel from Veolia underlined the importance of the maturity ladder. The private sector cannot always step in. The private sector won’t always be the solution that fits all contexts but for instance water NGOs definitely need to engage with the private sector to shape solutions, build national self-reliance and build investors’ confidence.
• Annelise April from Suez underlined the need to combine: i. Governance and regulations, ii. Skills, iii. Finance, in a partnership approach. And, Celine Robert from the French Development Agency stressed that one solution would be by using Overseas Development Assistance grants for the first two and blended finance for the third.
• Leonard Shang-Quartey from Water Citizens Network advocated for the use of ‘budget support’ as a much more efficient and effective tool compared to ‘project support’.
• Maria Pilar Palermo from the EU Delegation to Burkina Faso proposed combining different approaches: Budget support for governance and capacities, cooperation with NGOs on rural services, blended finance for investments.
• According to Sanitation and Water for All CEO, Caterina Albuquerque, partnerships support an enabling environment. The ingredients needed to achieve our goals are more participation, more transparency, less corruption, better access to information. Good governance also involves working together as we have seen, but it is not enough. It requires a higher political push.
• Way forward:

> Work across these different economic sectors and take advantage of cross-sectoral financing opportunities, including green finance and green bonds.

> Explore innovative financial mechanisms like the World Bank, the EU, the African Development have presented.

> Political leadership and good governments: strong legislative framework, robust accountability mechanisms and comprehensive policies, that promote human rights, address corruption and inequalities and ensure transparency, enabling investments in water and sanitation.

> Transformative approaches and critical interventions: 1. maximizing the value from existing public funding; 2. mobilizing more funding by setting up adequate cost recovery policies, looking at tariffs, taxes, etc.; 3. increasing domestic finance; and, 4. encouraging innovation and exploring new approaches.

> Promote public-private partnerships to combine private and public funding at earlier stages.

Key takeaway points from Session 4: The water-climate nexus: how to address the cascading crises

• There is a cascading water crisis impacting lives, economies and ecosystems. “90% of all these disasters are water-related and 80% of costs are affected by water quality and human health”, said Henk Ovink, Special Envoy for International Water Affairs in the Netherlands.
• All countries are increasingly facing situations of either too much, too little or too dirty water.
• “Access to clean water represents a critical aspect of both preparedness and resilience”, said Sonja Koeppel, Secretary of the Water Convention of UNECE.
• Some suggestions to mainstream climate change into water management: exchange of expertise on the impact of climate change on water, and water-focused mitigation and adaptation actions, such as the reuse of wastewater. Elena Višnar Malinovská, from DG CLIMA, announced that the EU will present a new climate adaptation strategy that underlines a number of important links that can be harnessed. It will acknowledge the global need to act together. It will support adaptation solutions that are easier to implement. Climate change needs to be integrated into water policies and strategies as well as river basin management plans.
• Financing for water and sanitation in climate change adaptation and mitigation remains a challenge since only less than 5% of climate funds are so far used for water.
• Disaster Risk Management needs to be promoted to achieve SDG 6. 
• The deep interconnections between the technical context and the sociocultural context must never be forgotten in our cooperation and something for which we must surely work in partnership.
• Bring indigenous knowledge to the table. “Great civilisations were the ones able to manage water and they deployed an incredible inventiveness and energy to design and deploy solutions”, reminded Antonio Cañas Calderón, from the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources of El Salvador.
• The participatory approach “creates a sense of ownership towards adaptive and resilient development process in the communities”, said Hasin Jahan, Country Director of WaterAid Bangladesh
• Way forward:

> Integration of water policy issues and climate change policy.

> Invest in water management and combine science and solidarity in the current situation.

> Best governance and transboundary cooperation to protect and restore transboundary ecosystems.

> The “Do no harm principle” and climate risk assessment should be at the forefront to make sure that the climate projects do not compromise the environmental goals.

> Use participatory approaches to assess community vulnerabilities, needs, and available resources to develop solutions to WASH issues, i.e. considering the knowledge of indigenous communities and their approach to nature.

Key takeaway points from Session 5: With knowledge and skills: water as the engine for economic development and jobs

• “Three out of four jobs that make up the entire global workforce are water-dependent”, said Michela Miletto, the UNESCO WWAP deputy coordinator. So lack of water has a direct impact on livelihoods, well-being and life. The FAO representative, Marlos de Souza, recalled us that “agriculture is the most dependent human activity in relation to water management. We can produce food without soil but not without water”.
• Water investments have a multiplier effect in generating and maintaining employment opportunities in all sectors. According to Miletto, “targeting investment in water supply and sanitation is not the only key to reach economic growth, but also to reach poverty alleviation goals more effectively and rapidly”.
• Adaptation to climate change can generate new employment opportunities, especially in research and development sectors of agriculture and water-dependent industries.
• “Innovation in a greener economy with new technology processes and practices like wastewater recycling, renewable energies, climate change adaptation, and water use efficiency can create new decent jobs. Therefore learning new skills and capacities is key. This may improve the resilience of the community individuals and reduce the need to migrate for the young generation especially,” said Miletto.
• Moshood Tijani, the representative of the African Ministers’ Council on Water, presented the 6 necessary areas for capacity building: 1) Curriculum review and trainers’ capacity building; 2) Technology-driving and transformative learning; 3) Investment in research and innovation in HEIs; 4) Investment in infrastructure and adaptable technology; 5) Inclusive gender and youth participation in the water sector; 6) Strengthen the capacity of policy/decision-makers.
• All the speakers agreed on designing programmes thinking horizontally, looking at capacity in terms of connecting the knowledge to policies because we need informed decisions. Researchers advocated for greater transparency in water data and information.  “We need to educate the policymakers with science and data for them to realize that it has an economic value”, said Tijani. “Science is a development driver (knowledge => development). But this only has a meaning if we answer to concrete needs and priorities coming from policymakers, but also the private sector to which we must transfer technology”, added César Carmona, from the Joint Research Centre.
• The role of systems thinking and understanding the interconnections between water and other interconnected sectors were underlined as an important skill set for entering the water sector job market.
• The role of volunteering and community participation was highlighted as important in encouraging the inclusion of youth and women who possess or can acquire job skills required in the water sector. “Young people are key stakeholders not only when it comes to decision making, but also when it comes to empowerment of for concrete solutions on the ground”, said Antonella Vagliente, General Director of Young Water Solutions.
• Way forward:

> National water education and international cooperation in co-creation of water and groundwater knowledge;

> Education and capacity building with respect to the surface and groundwater resilience under climate change at different education levels;

> Promoting open peer-to-peer learning between national governments in order to improve capacities and education on water resources in Africa;

> Increasing financing of research collaboration in groundwater and surface data sharing in Africa;

> Remote e-learning tools especially in this period of the pandemic;

> Encouraging multi-disciplinary training involving water-related practitioners;

> Creation of short courses on water management for policy-makers and senior managers.

Key takeaway points from Session 6: Water and the environment: resource management to support nature

• “Water can never be a stand-alone issue” and “nearly all disasters are closely linked to water”, reminded Nchedi Maphokga-Moripe, Chief Director of the Global Cooperation and Strategic Partnerships for Water and Sanitation in South Africa, who explained South Africa’s triple-inclusive approach based on considering social, political, and technical issues.
• “Nature is a give or take. If you do not take care, you will get what you deserve, so maybe a disaster”, said Nchedi.
• “Healthy ecosystems are crucial for clean water and the opposite”, emphasised Philippe Mayaux from DG INTPA.
• Each drop has to be used as efficiently and sustainably as possible and if possible in nature.
• Indeed, a number of participants presented nature-based solutions such as Silvia Saravia from ECLAC, which developed a database of more than 200 nature-based solutions for water that will be soon published. The next step is how can we promote and finance these nature-based solutions in our cooperation. Environment Bonds were presented as an option. The need to tap into climate adaptation funding was underlined too.
• SMEs were several times quoted as an important factor to develop.
• What is the role of our cooperation for innovation and standards is certainly a good question, not only for faecal sludge management but more broadly for the water industry. It helps innovations to move forward and can support SMEs to grow with a better understanding of the market and confidence that their investments can be sustainable and lead to results. “The focus to date within the sanitation sector has been looking at regulations and policy, which is why the Faecal Sludge Management Alliance is focusing on the development of industry-driven standards”, explained Jennifer Williams.
• From various panels, and in particular, to tackle the challenge of reaching rural areas and secondary cities, we regularly heard the trio also underlined by Borda: “Decentralise – keep it simple – ask first what is needed”.
• Most water-stressed regions are actually more a case of management crisis than an actual water crisis. Except for exceptional cases - incremental approach seems to the only viable approach for poor water-stressed region. The decentralized approach helps reduce complexity.
• Way forward:

> As for biodiversity, there are 3 pillars: Protection, sustainable use/management for multiple objectives, and restoration.

> Focus on innovation for managing water, increase the resilience of people and reuse water. Innovate using environment bond for nature-based solutions, use of equity for water SMEs, leverage foundations funding.

Key takeaway points from Session 7: Water as a human right: working towards implementation with all partners

• We must develop an approach based on human rights and environmental sustainability.
• Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, underlined the need to reach and reinforce municipalities and communities.  Decentralise to reach everybody and, in particular, underserved populations; and push cooperation outside of its comfort zone (we repeatedly heard that too often projects financed are serving people already having access to water services).
• Keep it simple, very often it is the best way to have lasting solutions, and ask first. It is a fundamental principle and a pillar of the human rights approaches.
• We heard from panellists that accountability in the WASH sector is weak and we have some failures in democratic governance of water. We need to make the best possible use of tools for rights-holders’ voices to be heard, and make sure projects are directly benefiting citizens and promoting value for money.
• And Mariet Verhoef called for good coordination between our programmes, horizontally but also vertically to reach everybody, including women on the ground.
• Neil Doth from Aquafed underlined the need for transparency that is crucial to improve accountability.
• Luisa Ragher, Head of Human Rights Division of the EEAS, reminded that there are EU guidelines on the human rights for safe drinking water and sanitation. These guidelines give a clear way forward with the fulfilment of accessibility, quality, affordability, and acceptability. She also presented how partnerships could look like: multilateral policy support, technical assistance, exchange of best practices, supporting human rights defenders, support for the implementation of projects. There is a need to support the implementation but also technical assistance’s so that they can be understood. Principles are already used in some INTPA partnerships and could be more promoted.
• Principles are already used in some INTPA partnerships and could be more promoted. We also have many examples of implementation by partners such as in Ethiopia and Nepal. Ethiopia has a systemic approach where interaction and institutions are necessary to deliver inclusive WASH, and where the human right approach has been made very practical for the government.  Nepal uses community scorecards to assess WASH services: e.g. can children and people with disabilities use the tap? What about the quality of water? Is drinking water affordable?
• Way forward:

> Involving authorities, operators, users, and CSOs in programming and implementation to ensure they are sustainable and targeted.

> Ensuring that EU funding for water and sanitation supports smaller-scale programmes, based on the most vulnerable communities’ needs.

Closing session

• Water issues are complex issues so they require complex responses that is why we need institutions, the private sector, the government, Team Europe, NGOs, and people on the table to dialogue.
• Water is not only a subject for governments but for the private sector. Celine Robert, Head of AFD’s Water and Sanitation Division, concludes that we need to work on good governance to have good strategic financial planning and to involve the private sector in improving the public sector.
• Alliances and partnerships go ahead with the responsibility of “not leaving no one behind”, emphasized Arrojo-Agudo.
• The EU is building the Team Europe approach: the way forward in future programming will be to link not only with the Member States but also with “like minders”, said Chantal Marijnissen, Head of INTPA’s Environment, Sustainable Natural Resources unit.
• To speed up and scale up our efforts, Carla Montesi – Director for Green Deal and Digital Agenda of INTPA – proposed to take advantage of high-level summits taking place this year to include and address water issues in an integrated way.
• Water is part of the European Green Deal agenda and the Green Cities agenda, and thanks to the allocation of 2.2 million euros, the regulation that EU Member States have and the fact that they included water and WASH in the definition of human rights, the EU will be able to scale up this issue, explained Marijnissen.
• From various panels, and in particular, to tackle the challenge of reaching rural areas and secondary cities, we regularly heard the trio also suggested by Borda: “Decentralise – keep it simple – ask first what is needed”
• Ben Amphoma from Ghana stressed the need to promote Disaster Risk Management for SDG 6, and then innovate using environment bond for NBS, equity for water PMEs, leverage foundations funding, etc.
• NGO’s play an important role on the ground empowering people, building water and sanitation teams, and as “local keepers” to ensure that services are going to the population, confirmed Amphoma and Arrojo-Agudo.
• The Slovenia presidency will be guided by the ambition to add water systematically and comprehensibly in the EU external action and including it by highlighting the 3 nexuses: humanitarian, development, and peace nexus, said Ana Novak.

Disclaimer: This post contains a summary of the sessions of the conference 'Water and Beyond: EU transformative approaches for international partnerships', and its content does not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Commission.