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2020 Delft Agenda for Action
on Knowledge and Capacity for the Water Sector
This Symposium Report offers the conclusions and recommendations of the 6th International Symposium on
Knowledge and Capacity for the Water Sector – From Capacity Development to Implementation Science, a
global on-line event convened by IHE Delft between May 25 and June 26, 2020. The Report comprises the
2020 Delft Agenda for Action (below), the separate reports of the Track debates, and the list of main
contributors.
The context
Looking forward, our world is facing more, and more urgent, challenges related to water security. We are
still far from reaching the SDG 6 (and other water-related) goals to supply secure water supply and
sanitation services to all. The insecurity and risks associated with water shortages, flooding, storm surges
and sea-level rise are increasing. The combined forces of climate change and growing water demand
propelled by population and economic growth could see the world tip by mid-century from a
predominantly water-abundant place, to one that is predominantly water-scarce.
At the same time as this urgency increases, investments and policies must navigate expanding regulatory,
financial and political complexity and provide answers for a future that comes with growing uncertainty. In
rich and developing economies alike, the managers of water organisations must solve ever-widening
problems and puzzles that require command of a variety of disciplines, skills, leadership and adaptability.
The Symposium aimed to help outline the core skills, knowledge and attitudes the world’s water
professionals and water management institutions will be needing to effectively address this complex task. It
built on the concepts of capacity development (CD)1 and move towards an implementation science2. While
most countries have developed good policies, laws and plans, their effective implementation remains
challenging. Thus, the debates focused on the questions ‘what’ needs to be done to achieve more effective
and secure water management, as well as on ‘how’ the underpinning institutional capacities can be
strengthened.
CD encompasses the enhancement of knowledge and the strengthening of skills, competencies, and
attitudes, of individuals, with the objective to deliver water-related services and solve water-related
problems. This is done through formal education programmes, training and life-long learning processes in a
professional context—an effort that all countries are pursuing. But CD extends well beyond the sphere of
the individual. The capacity of water agencies and of the sector as a whole is more than the cumulative
capacity of their staff members. Institutions and the sector itself gain in effectiveness through a conducive
institutional architecture and human resources, and through incentives and procedures that structure
1 Capacity Development is the process to provide individuals, organizations and other relevant institutions with the capacities, i.e. the knowledge, skills, attitudes and procedures, that allow them to perform in such a way that the water sector as an aggregate can perform optimally, now and in the future. Capacity is the capability to identify and to understand the relevant issues, to act to address these, and to learn from experience and accumulate knowledge. 2 Implementation science is commonly understood to be the study of strategies and methods to promote the embedding into routine practice of interventions that have proven effective, here with respect to the aim of enhancing overall water security.
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critical reflection, help acquire knowledge and strengthen internal learning. At the same time, the
educational agenda remains central to expand and share the ‘global knowledge pool’ and enable society to
make better-informed choices and play a growing role in water management. But are the curricula and the
didactic and participatory systems adjusted to meet these imminent challenges?
Conclusions and recommendations
Achieving the SDGs within 10 years will require substantive additional capacities in the water sector, as well
as a change in mind sets. The ongoing Covid-19 is highlighting persistent systemic vulnerabilities in
infrastructure, institutions, and societies around the globe. It also reconfirmed the existential role of water,
sanitation and hygiene as ‘the first line of defence’ and precondition to safeguarding livelihoods. Yet, too
many decision-makers, businesses and people around the world hope to return to a ‘business as usual’ that
is lethal in an era of global environmental change.
Decades of investment in CD have led to significant improvements, yet these efforts so far have not
managed to deliver hoped-for progress. It is becoming widely accepted that in order to have deeper, long-
term impact CD has to take a more systemic approach. Technical proficiency in individuals alone will not
improve the performance of water management much if it is not accompanied by a supporting culture in
the organisations they work for. Expansion of ‘grey infrastructure’ alone will not reduce water stress and
vulnerability to disasters unless the on-going degradation of surrounding ‘green infrastructure’ in water
catchments, wetlands and aquifers, is reversed. Delivering water ‘hardware’—from hand pumps in villages
to smart water infrastructure in urban centres—will not improve water security unless it is embedded in
political and social institutions, and complemented with the right ‘human software’, i.e. capacity, to
operate, maintain, and govern it.
CD activities traditionally have been geared either at generic and foundational knowledge sharing and skill
development (typically as formal education programmes and as development of knowledge networks) or at
highly specific technical skill development aimed at short-term learning objectives (typically through
training, and coaching and mentoring). These types of CD remain valuable and significant. But many other
pressing demands for CD are not well addressed, such as in leadership development, life-long learning
frames, human resources management, knowledge management and change management in
organisations.
To now prepare for an era of rapid global transitions a more elaborate and structural kind of CD is called for
that seeks to guide and help implement programmes of change and new professional practices.
Building capacity for a sustainable water sector means to build coalitions of partners spanning the global
North and South; problem-driven knowledge production; the co-design of new forms of infrastructure; and
a willingness and ability of each partner to step into a leadership role when his specific expertise is called
for. Capacity for achieving the SDGs and for building climate-resilient societies is in fact preparedness for
carrying responsibility in a complex, changing and uncertain world. This requires leadership which can be
developed through attitude-building and skills development training, and coaching.
Capacity development for water management is now facing five priority goals:
1) Instil a systems perspective across all water related research, training, decision-making and
implementation. Water issues are shaped by social, economic and political dynamics and are
wicked in nature. They always involve trade-offs between competing goals and values. Assessing
water challenges in isolation creates business cases for ‘stupid infrastructure’ that may yield short-
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term financial returns but can make societies eventually more vulnerable to disruptions. CD funded
and offered by agencies, institutes and NGOs have tended to focus on specific limited parts of the
water challenge which compounds this problem, often resulting in a patchwork of disconnected
activities frequently missing out on synergies and lacking consideration for systemic side-effects of
promoted approaches.
2) Reduce capacity development activities with only a short term or backward perspective. A
significant share of current CD in the water sector consists of blindly scaling up so-called ‘best
practices’. By definition, this draws on experience from problem solutions of the past, and distracts
from creating systems capable of adapting to the new problems of the future. The practice of
repeated short-term pilot activities and setting up training and information data-bases, on one
hand allows CD providers to learn from each effort, but, on the other, is also often used as an alibi
to avoid taking responsibility and long-term ownership of systemic consequences at the project
sites.
3) Break the ‘counting heads’ mentality for measuring impact. Capacity development is often
exclusively measured in terms of logistical output indicators only, such as numbers of people
trained, years of schooling, or number of regulations ratified. Yet, this does not capture changes in
underlying capacity. The sector needs to move beyond simplistic statistics, and start
complementing the quantitative with qualitative methods, and measuring systemic impacts in ways
that speak to political decision-makers.
4) Improve inclusiveness and blended approaches. Achieving water-related SDGs involves action by
society as a whole which requires trust and social acceptance for innovations and change. Limiting
capacity development to narrow groups of professionals deflects attention from the role of
stakeholders affected by the new practices. Meaningful participation, in particular of women,
youth, and marginalized groups, is a long-standing demand, but still lacking in practice. CD needs to
achieve more diversity by blending approaches to accommodate a wider range of audiences and
learning styles.
5) Make CD funding less dependent on project budgets. Too much CD is linked to distinct
infrastructure projects, concentrating funding in one-off activities, and not in areas of highest need
or for longer-term impact. The ‘last mile’ of rural water supply, subsistence agriculture and the
stewardship for essential aquatic ecosystems are particularly under-served. Pushing CD providers to
become financially self-sustaining further directs CD efforts to ‘clients’ that possess financial means
but may have only narrow, short-term goals. Yet, society’s capacity that is required to achieve the
SDGs also concerns public goods, thus, more blended public-private financing models are needed to
deliver a CD that capable of preparing for our future.
What we have shapes what we offer. Water-related capacity development remains often locked into
unsustainable path dependencies. The first step towards a new paradigm is to accept that in an uncertain
world, no single actor has a ‘solution’ for complex water issues. At most, our technical expertise forms one
piece of a larger puzzle that has to be assembled into context-specific, systemic approaches under local
ownership. Greater respect for what other disciplines bring to the table is required as the basis for long-
term collaboration in alliances capable of building systemic water capacity.
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Stop
● Defund CD supporting water infrastructure plans that increase systemic vulnerabilities (‘stupid
infrastructure’)
● Question backward-looking ‘best practices’ for their adaptive potential when solving future
problems
● Reduce CD ‘pilots’ that have no follow up and project-linked CD activities without systemic
components that can connect with a programme of change
● Measuring CD impact in quantitative terms only (‘measuring what can be counted, instead of what
counts’)
Start
● Conduct needs assessments as opportunity (not just deficit) analysis, with consideration for social
and political acceptability of changes, and incentives needed for behavioural changes
● Combine all technical education and training, by default, with training in meta-skills that allow
beneficiaries to autonomously adapt contents (e.g. design capacities) to new conditions, and
behavioural skills that support implementation
● Refocus CD on creating agency, and the ability to solve problems we have not thought of yet
● Investing in infrastructure that ‘enables people’, including access to information services, data and
the internet
Do more
● Continue addressing persistent challenges, including CD for utilities in the global South to reduce
water losses and expand basic access, and vocational training for infrastructure maintenance tasks
● Expand efforts in education programmes, training, networking and institutional CD to connect with
other disciplines, contextualize water challenges and solutions, and increase their local institutional
embedding
● Expand efforts to include women and youth in water-related decision making at all levels and
junctures
● Expand initiatives addressing the complexity of water issues – focusing on inter-disciplinarity,
systems thinking, problem analysis, and institutional aspects
● Explore and pilot innovative finance blending private and public funds to reduce risk and scale up
meritorious investment opportunities
Fifteen immediate actions to improve capacity in the water sector:
Instil a systems perspective across all water related education, training, research, planning and decision-
making.
1. Public Authorities: Increase connections between water supply, water resource, and environmental
water administrations and establish collaborative mechanisms for infrastructure related decisions
2. Funders/Investment Banks: Review the current CD portfolio for its contribution to achieving SDGs
and climate change readiness and adaptation, and reach out to the water agencies to help
formulate realistic investment proposals that can attract more finance
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3. Capacity Development Providers: Strengthen inter-disciplinarity, and systems thinking, in curricula
across the board, with priority for leadership skills and integrating ecology and green infrastructure
in engineering
4. The Water Community: Advocate for greater diversity of expertise and disciplines needed to solve
the global water crisis, actively countering perceptions of water as a ‘technical’ issue
Foster a long-term and forward-looking perspective in capacity development
5. Funders/Investment Banks: Increase the duration and integration of water-related capacity
development programming, and provide specific funding options to follow up pilot programmes
6. Public authorities/Water Service Organisations: Develop long-term frameworks for CD, including for
staff and leadership development, and ensure funded projects align and contribute to the effort
7. Capacity Development Providers: Review to ensure that education and training curricula prepare
participants to autonomously adapt and contextualize technical contents. Ensure inclusion of
complementary meta-knowledge, such as design skills (e.g. design of monitoring systems when
teaching monitoring methods), didactics and teaching skills to improve formal and informal sharing
of knowledge, and behavioural skills critical to working with stakeholders, including communication
(listening) skills, negotiation, problem analysis, critical thinking, and behavioural understanding of
social and political dynamics
Break the ‘counting heads’ mentality for measuring capacity development impact
8. Funders/Investment Banks: Modernize impact measurement in project proposals and evaluations,
combining quantitative targets with qualitative methods to assess actual increased capacity and
demonstrate its economic value
Focusing capacity development on inclusiveness and blended approaches
9. Funders/Investment Banks: Create leadership training programmes for female professionals,
including an extended follow-up period of on-the-job mentoring and professional networking
10. Water Service Organisations/Utilities: Review working conditions for female staff, secure equal pay
and career opportunities, safe work spaces, and work with all staff to overcome work cultures that
are gender-biased
11. CD Providers: Increase study opportunities in other languages than English, such as French and
Arabic, and make more content available in local languages. Diversify offers to address more
different learning styles and personal situations
12. Civil Society/Water Professionals: Support the development of blended approaches to CD, and help
to interface local and traditional communication spaces with international resources
Funding for Capacity development
13. Funders/Development Banks: Create dedicated resources for the ‘last mile’ in rural areas,
promoting the intermediary institutions that can bridge the demand and supply of finance
14. CD Providers: Diversify delivery modalities and invest in capacity to be facilitators of learning
processes, not just content providers, e.g. assisting peer learning and South-South collaboration
15. Funders/CD providers: Reach out to the financial sector to increase knowledge about water
investments, and target training to water professionals to become better able to negotiate with the
financial sector and prepare financing proposals
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2020 Delft Agenda for Action – Knowledge and Capacity for Water Management
-- Capacity to operate under complexity and uncertainty –
The discussions focused on (1) planning, monitoring and evaluation of impact in complex settings, and (2) the
role of institutions, research and data-driven learning in dealing with uncertainty.
Key contributions were made by Leon Hermans (IHE Delft, The Netherlands – Discussion Lead), Håkan Tropp
(SIWI, Sweden – Discussion Lead), Malik Fida Khan (Centre for Environmental and Geographic Information
Services CEGIS, Bangladesh – Moderator), Anne Oudes (Oxfam Novib, The Netherlands – Rapporteur), James
Leten (UNDP-SIWI Water Governance Facility [WGF], Rapporteur), as well as individual speakers (see further).
Contributions were as follows:
Presentation Eshwer Kale and Hemant Pinnjan. Applying Transformative Scenario Planning process for transforming the behaviour of water users
Presentation Sandra van Soelen. Using Most Significant Change stories to measure the results of capacity development
Presentation Sydney Byrns, Richard Quilliam, Tracy Morse, Ellis Adams and Heather Price. Applying systems thinking approaches to overcome intractable water sector governance challenges in Malawi
Pitch Md Shibly Sadik, Leon Hermans, Jaap Evers, Malik Fida Abdullah Khan, Sadiq Ahmed, Nguyen Hong Quan and Ahmmed Zulfiqar Rahaman. Motivation and ability of institutions for participatory management of coastal polders in Bangladesh: An application of the MOTA Framework
Presentation Angela van den Broek, Michiel Slotema and Gabor Szanto. Impact measurement using Sprockler: Experiences, benefits and limitations
Presentation Jaynie Vonk. Quantitative impact evaluations for sustainable water and sanitation
Pitch Tanvi Walawalkar. Theory based evaluation of plans dependent on induced behavioural change
Pitch Ana Alejandra Leal Lara. Impacts of the Netherlands International Water Ambition – a case study in Mexico
Presentation Denise Moraes Carvalho and Rob van Tulder. Tripartite partnerships and the wickedness of the water and sanitation sector in Brazil: an institutional analysis
Presentation Ruchika Shiva, Shiny Saha, Nitya Jacob and Shipra Saxena. Assessment of capacity building initiatives for key stakeholders in India: Insights into rural water & sanitation
Presentation Winston Yu and Rachel von Gnechten. The limits of institution building in water resource management
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Presentation Arno van Lieshout, Zoltán Vekerdy and Benjamin Kötz. TIGER Capacity Building Facility: Experiences of a complex capacity building approach towards earth observation for water in Africa
Presentation Maria del Pozo, Judith Gulikers, Erik van Slobbe, Perry den Brok and Fulco Ludwig. Current knowledge status on capacity building for climate services: an empirical study using C3S blended trainings
Topic 1: Key challenges related to planning, monitoring and evaluation for impact
The need and challenge to meaningfully engage all stakeholders in water management. Dr. Eshwer Kale,
from the Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), India, presented an example in which this was tried out. In
Junla, India, he was involved in a Transformative Scenario Planning Process. This process aimed to engage all
stakeholders, from higher level government officials via social workers, media to farmers and the most
marginalized people in the area. Through a wide range of (creative and visual) techniques, the stakeholders
together defined different possible futures and created a roadmap to move to the most desirable future.
Participants in the webinar discussed the fact that it is often hard to meaningfully include the most
marginalized. Another example of engagement of stakeholders came from Sydney Byrns, who has applied a
systems thinking approach to overcome water governance challenges in Malawi. The Malawi case differed
from India in that it held different sessions for different types of stakeholders (community members separate
from NGO staff), in an effort to nurture trust and an open exchange.
The need and challenge to understand water management within the system it operates in. This is
important to allow for sustainable changes in water management, even after external stakeholders such as
NGOs leave the scene, and to avoid negative effects of these interventions. Only when one understands the
system and how one’s (capacity strengthening) intervention is positioned in it, one can see who needs what
type of capacity strengthening to improve the system. This refers to socio-technical and political systems,
including the roles of actors and institutions, also covered by Ana Alejandra Leal Lara who used contextual
interaction theory to study the impacts of bilateral water cooperation between Mexico and the Netherlands.
Continue to learn how to detect and measure ‘soft effects’ such as capacity strengthening. Different
methods were presented. Sandra van Soelen shared Simavi’s experiences in the use of Most Significant
Change methods, Angela van den Broek and Michiel Slotema (Netherlands Enterprise Agency RVO, rvo.nl)
discussed RVO’s experience with Sprockler - a mixed-method online platform - and Jaynie Vonk presented
Oxfam’s Sustainable Water & Sanitation Index. Tanvi Walawalkar shared her use of a behavioral change
evaluation framework. The presenters agreed that it is important to combine different methods, as together
they share a more complete picture of capacity strengthening results and as in triangulation they provided a
more reliable view on what has changed.
Topic 2: Key challenges related to institutions, research and data-driven learning
The challenge to build capacities in complex institutional landscapes. Denise Moraes Carvalho explained
the Brazilian institutional complexity as well as her interpretation of where the three parties fail in their role.
In a tripartite relationship, Denise demonstrated that the different parties have their respective failures. Her
position is that the different parties will have to address their respective failure as part of their contribution
to the tripartite partnership. Capacity is also the main challenge in the regulatory function. The main
regulation in Brazil is done at municipal level with some small municipalities having very limited resources
for this governance function.
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A comment by SIWI stated that a Central Regulator is an entry point, as institutions with high potential for
leveraging capacity development in ‘good water governance’. They are in a position to develop, propose,
and build capacity on ‘good governance’ and impose ‘good governance’ standards.
Inequalities in access to information and in appropriate space to evolvement in governance functions.
Ruchika Shiva and Shiny Saha, from IRC – India, presented a capacity building assessment of the water and
sanitation sector in rural India. The main objective of the assessment is to understand the actual capacities
and staffing in the sector as well as the capacity building initiatives for different stakeholders – bureaucrats,
technocrats and elected representatives. The case study demonstrates different capacity development
approaches for different actors in the sector. They identified elected representatives and CBO (community
based organizations) not receiving the space to contribute to certain government functions (strategizing,
planning and monitoring) and not having access to certain sources of information, hence not capacitated to
fully play their role. Culturally women are not enabled to fully contribute in the WASH governance.
Limited programme/project time and resources do not allow to measure impact and draw lessons from
failures and successes. Due to this, during next decade we might end up doing the same errors. This was
highlighted by Winston Yu assessing the World Bank’s efforts in governance support and by Arno van Lieshout
presenting TIGER’s history (TIGER started in 2008). The TIGER initiative highlights the importance to include
in the capacity development activities the development of peer networks, the importance of incentives to
use the provided tools and methodologies, and the importance of building long-term commitments to the
topic and to the established networks/partnerships. In a comment, SIWI added that capacity development
should lead to recipients engaging in a ‘change of behaviour’, hence highlighting the importance of
‘behaviour science’ research and conclusions in capacity development endeavours. In addition, capacity
development requires the desired change to be ‘motivated’ by harnessing the right incentives (which can
include emotional incentives). Capacity development needs to go hand in hand with awareness raising and
with making change becoming ‘socially acceptable and desirable’; it requires change to be facilitated and
made easy. This concept and agenda need to be developed further!
The problem, the capabilities needed, and the way forward The central problem: the need to move beyond ‘monitor and adapt’.
The key challenges derive from the ‘wickedness’, the complexity, of water sector problems. With that comes
their unpredictability, dynamics and a lack of agreement among stakeholders of what the problem is and
what the desired solutions are. The ‘past’ response to deal with this wickedness (Note: past in quotation
marks, because many present it as quite modern) is Monitor (or Measure) and Adapt. The problem is that
this ‘past’ response is surely useful, but cannot be sufficient.
Capabilities needed to overcome this problem: leadership and collective sense-making
We need to build capacities for the actors, the stakeholders, in the water sector, to ‘lead’, meaning, shape
their future. Not just adapt to what is coming to us, but actively transform the futures into futures we want.
This requires also capacity for collective sense-making, among all by stakeholders. See the three points
(challenges), described for Topic 1 (planning, monitoring and evaluation) above.
Panelists also stressed the importance of ‘listening’ and stated that ‘leadership happens in conversation’.
They posited the question: ‘how do we connect better to each other to open doors to collaborate?’
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How to develop this capacity?
Particular methods develop this capability, broadly, come in two sets:
Methods that help move beyond adaptation in planning and policy formulation. Transformative
Scenario Planning (Eshwer Kale, WOTR, India), and systems thinking (Sydney Byrns, applied in
Malawi). Both applied in a participatory way, involving stakeholders from different levels,
‘marginality’ and sectors.
Methods that help us move beyond numbers and ‘business cases’ in planning, monitoring and
evaluation. Most clearly, use of systematic approaches to complement the numbers with stories.
Stories that speak to stakeholders and help them learn among each other, but also stories that speak
to the more political decision-makers. Most Significant Change (Sandra van Soelen, applied in Kenya,
Uganda and Tanzania) and Sense-making, using Sprockler (Angela van den Broek and Michiel
Slotema, RVO, applied in Ghana and Kenya).
To start using these and similar methods more intensively:
Train water professionals in the use of these methods. This includes not just ‘technical’ knowledge
of the methods but includes the facilitation and stakeholder mobilization skills, as these are
participatory methods.
Accustom all stakeholders to get used to these new ways of working. This requires inclusiveness,
efforts to ‘translate’ one’s own knowledge and disciplinary language to enable dialogue with others,
and, more broadly, empathy. Also this point came up in the Symposium plenary sessions, among
others in Henk Ovink’s statement: ‘Empathy, people, people, people… If you invest in the people,
you maximize opportunity’.
Key messages
1. We need to move beyond ‘monitor and adapt’, to more pro-actively shape our future and to empower
stakeholders to do so. We have methods to support this transition, such as transformative scenarios and
systems thinking. These require empathy and efforts of all stakeholders to engage in dialogue with each
other.
2. We need to communicate lessons and successes, not just in numbers, key performance indicators and
business cases. Stories are a critical complement to quantitative indicators for this. Methods like Most
Significant Change and Sense-making help capture stories in a systematic way. Stories speak to
stakeholders, including the more political decision-makers, and help stakeholders learn among each
other.
3. What we ‘have’, in terms of data, methods and institutions, shapes what we do ‘offer’. Various forms
of lock-ins and path dependencies are visible that continue to shape the water sector. This is for instance
visible in the use of climate data for decision-making: sound data are needed and require capacity to be
collected, analysed and used. Yet the available data still tend to be collected by scientists and are often
not yet tailored to the decision-making needs.
4. Institutional complexities are a new reality in the water sector. Our full understanding of these
complexities is still limited, but there are some ingredients to move forward towards better
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understanding and intervention. These ingredients include ensuring a mix of partners (like in tripartite
partnerships), regulatory frameworks that are sufficiently clear to allow for coordination, sufficient
resources and space to contribute for the different entities to play their role, especially at the lower
levels.
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2020 Delft Agenda for Action – Knowledge and Capacity for Water Management
-- Cooperation and conflict resolution in transboundary water management –
The University Partnership for Water Cooperation and Diplomacy (UPWCD, https://upwcd.org) brings
together institutions focused on capacity and knowledge development in transboundary water cooperation
and conflict resolution. A number of partners contributed to the Symposium. They reflected on key
challenges, took stock of past and current activities that aim to capacitate individuals, organisations and
countries to address these challenges, and brainstormed about future challenges and opportunities.
Key observations and recommendations
Transboundary water management is a pre-eminently complex domain as it involves by definition a
comparatively large number and diversity of actors and as it plays out at numerous distinct levels. The
pathways and processes in the development of conflict as well as of cooperation reflect this complexity, and
to be effective, capacity development activities should do that as well.
Importantly, strategy development and negotiations on transboundary waters involve specialized knowledge
on these processes. Teams engaged in strategy development and negotiations need to dispose of the
relevant skills and combine technical water-related expertise with knowledge on political, institutional and
behavioural sciences as well as negotiation skills.
The decision-making and negotiation phase on one hand, and the implementation phase on the other, are
too often disconnected. This is often related to insufficient or too selective involvement of stakeholders and,
thus, only patchy commitment to any negotiated solutions. Similarly, the implementation of the negotiated
solutions is often insufficiently sensitive to the conflict-prone social and political environment in which this
takes place. It is observed that typically the strategies and activities are poorly integrated or even not properly
coordinated on the different sides of borders, or between sectors within one country (e.g. the water,
agricultural and power sectors, and environment and land use planning). Finally, many analyses and
programmes do not take into account the fact that dialogues and implementation in such conflict situations
take very long time frames. This results in loss of trust in cooperation and missed opportunities.
In many cases local capacity is available, though not at the right time or in the right place, or the capacity is
not backed by political will. Much potential is embodied in the capabilities of the young generation.
Moreover, it is important not to focus only on what can be achieved in leadership positions and at the top of
careers, but to also recognize how many meaningful and long-lasting changes happen through people and
professionals on the ground.
Capacity development therefore needs to be planned with a long-term perspective to match the long time
frames imposed by the understanding of the drivers of the conflict, the conflict resolution, the
implementation of negotiated solutions, and the building of trust among stakeholders. Long time frames are
also better able to recognize that careers of professionals and decision-makers are built one step at a time
over a long period. An investment in young careers is a long-term investment, for example by creating
meaningful online tools for networking and mutual learning among young water scholars across the globe.
The UPWCD offers the platform to link knowledge institutions active in the field of transboundary water
cooperation and diplomacy, catalyse peer-learning, and increase their impact.
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Assessing the impact of capacity development activities remain challenging, and requires more than
quantitative metrics. Because of the long time frames and the complexity of the processes involved, it is
usually hard to attribute a positive event to a distinct single cause, however, as capacity development
typically has effects on many small elements of the complex process at the same time it may still have an
overall valuable impact.
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2020 Delft Agenda for Action – Knowledge and Capacity for Water Management
-- Making utilities more targeted and effective through partnerships –
The debate focused on capacity development for helping water organisations such as utilities, water boards,
ministries, private operators and water users (NGOs, CSOs, and other community groups) to become better
targeted, more resilient and more effective through deeper partnerships for the extension of water services,
especially the ‘last mile’ to reach the more vulnerable and poor communities.
Key contributors and speakers included Mr. Sipho Mosai (Chief Executive, Rand Water, South Africa), Dr.
Fawcett Ngoatje (Group Shared Services Executive, Rand Water, South Africa), Ms Wayida Mohamed (Group
Human Resources Executive, Rand Water, South Africa), Mr. Reinder van den Brink (Vitens-Evides
International, The Netherlands), Mr. Henk Holtslag (SMART Centers, The Netherlands), Dr. Nemanja
Trifunović (IHE Delft, The Netherlands), Ms. Jeske Verhoeven (IRC, The Netherlands), Ms. Daniela Benedicto
van Dalen (Acacia Water, The Netherlands), Mr. Lenka Thamae (Southern African Development Community
SADC) and Mr. Armindo Laissane Dimande (Fundo de Investimento e Património do Abastecimento de Agua
FIPAG, Mozambique).
The main contributions include:
Sipho Mosai: Capacity building as a requirement for sustainable utility management
The future sustainability of water utilities requires good strategy with special purpose vehicles
like the Rand Water academy or the regional academies. Utility human resources
development must be future based with strong emphasis on the 4IR (the 4th Industrial
Revolution). Rand Water as a leading water utility has an innovation driven risk based
strategy.
Reinder van den Brink: Holistic approach, partnership, root-cause analysis, capacity development
A multi-dimensional problem requires a holistic approach. Capacity development in a utility
relates to many issues which in itself are frequently multi-dimensional including the categories
of advice, hardware, training and new IT, which do influence and reinforce each other.
Motivational problems need to be addressed not only by proper equipment to professionalize
the employee, but also by a more adequate management styles. The interlinkages of causes
and solutions have driven the Water Operator Partnership in Mwanza to choose a holistic
approach, creating a utility change which is still ongoing and adopted (gradually) by both
management and employees.
Henk Holtslag: Sustainable development goal 6, household water treatment, innovative technologies, self-supply, training
Household water treatment and safe storage seem to be most cost-effective solution to have
safe drinking water at the point of use (in rural WATSAN). Supply chains of innovative
technologies increase options for self-supply and assist in strengthening commercial supply
chains. Self-supply is where families invest in their own water supply, especially in rural areas
of Africa. This could have a positive impact on water availability. The training of the local
private sector in technical and business skills of SMARTECHS has proven to be a strong tool to
reach the SDG6.
North to South engagements need to be guided be a comprehensive ‘Marshall Plan’ assuming
significant investment in WASH in the world.
Nemanja Trifunović: Water utility training and capacity development in urban water and sanitation in Southern African region
Set-up of the FIPAG Academy for Professional Development in water and sanitation (WATSAN)
co-funded by the NUFFIC-NICHE programme of the Dutch government is an effort to improve
the WATSAN sector in Mozambique and the Southern African Development Community
(SADC). The 2.5 million Euro project, ending after 7 years in 2019, was implemented by an
international consortium composed of three Dutch organisations and two SADC based
institutions. Until now over 500 participants were trained on various water supply subjects.
The project demonstrated the relevance of South-South collaboration, spelling five pillars of
successful capacity development: ownership, leadership, partnership friendship and
entrepreneurship. Collaborative platforms should be established to determine the SADC
region’s appetite for widening the scope of this nature. The Rand Water Academy in
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collaboration with IHE and the FIPAG Academy will form the basis on which the SADC WATSAN
School will be launched, as a result of a triangular North–South-South collaboration.
Jeske Verhoeven: Collective action for the WASH SDGs: Learning lessons from change processes in four countries
Innovations and changes are vital to address a myriad of challenges: service levels in most low-
income countries are a long way away from SDG ambitions. Through the sharing of knowledge
and practical experiences, learning alliances engage different stakeholders from across the
system to support alignment and action towards a common vision. Through building systems
leadership capacity, stakeholders are encouraged to work differently, to co-create and to think
ahead rather than respond reactively to issues. The plans articulate the long-term priorities of
districts and provide a framework for planning, coordinating and guiding the implementation
of WASH service delivery.
Daniela Benedicto van Dalen: Co-creating capacities for improved water management
Sustainable water management is vital in poverty reduction. Collaboration between training
practitioners allow co-creation of training materials in local spheres. Implement or bring
theory to practice in improving water management (water resources management strategies).
Shaping capacity development that allows participants to train others by means of the training
of trainer concept. The success of capacity development in water management relies on
collaborative initiatives which involve effective communication among stakeholders.
The main observations, conclusions and recommendations emerging from the debates are as follows.
Positive change can only be implemented in an atmosphere of trust and with an open heart. In order
for last-mile interventions to succeed beyond project completion, the stakeholder base must be built on key
principles of trust, good governance and honesty. The impact of such principles and values ignites a greater
awareness for sustainability after the project closure.
The last-mile reference denotes the desire to reach the rural areas. Business cases are tougher in
rural than in urban areas. Multi-stakeholder alliances, co-creativity, and a family of alliances that bring
lessons-learned to national and global platforms, must be enabled to also reach rural levels. Growing circles
of influence within regions that can connect to the rural areas are critical to achieve impact and economic
sustainability.
The task of achieving the SDG 6 in rural areas needs to be scaled up. An acute need exists to do a
deeper and more comprehensive inventory and analysis to understand what is needed in both rural and
urban settings. A type of ‘Marshall Plan for Capacity Building’ is necessary with (partial) funding from the
North to make this happen. This resulting information must be shared amongst recognised implementers of
key projects related to capacity development at regional and local levels. WASH has a global footprint with
the capacity and ability to develop practitioners capable of achieving capacity development impact at rural
level. This includes various water and sanitation platforms and programmes that will need to be further
developed and adjusted into online programmes. IHE Delft’s global network and system can play a vital role
to reach both urban and rural arenas, provided key alliances are formed at both government and industry
levels.
The capacity that was built in water utilities in the South in the past few decades has lent them
increasing confidence to assume the responsibility of capacity development themselves by establishing their
own training facilities and seeking collaboration with local universities as well as international partners. Such
initiatives are highly valuable and help to better recognise the multidisciplinary nature of WATSAN challenges
asking for a holistic and integrated approach, through problem-oriented research and life-long-learning
programmes. At the same time, to have sustainable operation with trainee intakes expanding beyond the
own staff of these utilities, such water academies need to be adequately mainstreamed into the local
educational systems in order to provide a quality assurance derived from national accreditation regulations.
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North-South and South-South collaborations are very valuable and important to achieve the SDG 6.
Many countries in the South are reliant on the North for assistance with funding, know-how and technical
assistance. The role of donors from the North aiming to enhance South-South collaboration should be specific
and targeted in their terms of references. The support from Northern partners is likely to be more fruitful
with longer-term effects if they are collaborating with strong Southern partners. These generally have a track
record as successful implementers of projects and are leaders in their field, and are already mandated to
engage at grassroots level. Importantly, they have an incentive to develop strong bilateral relationships with
other Southern partners, thus creating South-South networks capable of collaborating with the North at even
level.
To increase the outreach, Northern organisations (such as IHE Delft) should delegate part of their
capacity development activities to strong partners in the South (such as the Rand Water Academy) that are
able to develop and maintain their regional networks (such as with the FIPAG Academy) with dedicated
assistance from the Northern organisation(s). At the same time, such consortium also provides the
international branding that can attract students and funding agencies. This should eventually evolve in the
initiative to establish a regional WATSAN school in which several local providers of education collaborate,
covering potentially the entire water cycle viewed from engineering/technical, management and governance
aspects.
The role of Southern governments is critical in supporting the above process: they have to identify
and mandate their ‘champion’ organisations within specific sectors to implement and drive specified
projects. To demonstrate their sense of ownership, the Southern partners need to be actively involved in the
programme formulation phase and its related project activities, and commit seed funding or co-funding to
complement the Northern funding. It is suggested for such North-South collaboration to be firmly anchored
at ministerial level, earmarking funding and expert assistance to ensure that the capacity development can
be implemented through South-South (regional) collaboration.
To enhance the sustainability and management of utilities, it is recommended to create special
facilities such as the Rand Water Academy in South Africa (and neighbouring countries) and the FIPAG
Academy in Mozambique that have among their mandates the responsibility to drive and maintain medium-
to long-term strategies of utilities. The following vision is proposed. In collaboration with both academies
and other interested partners, Rand Water has a vision to combine its resources, knowledge, skills, and
potential markets and form a regional education and training facility under the auspices of IHE Delft. The
proposed plan of action includes the development of a road map for the regional postgraduate school in
water and sanitation (based on the existing Netherlands - Republic of South Africa nucleus and including
other reputable and interested regional partners). The tentative launch is envisaged in 2024, leading to a
network of training facilities equipped with modern tools, running various programmes, including online
education, with the aim to develop a life-long-learning WATSAN programme for the region. The support of
the Dutch and South African governments will be solicited, as well as that of other international donors and
Development Financial Institutions.
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2020 Delft Agenda for Action – Knowledge and Capacity for Water Management
-- Developing capacity for water financing – Panel participants included financial and water sector professionals from Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle
East, and the Americas. Private-finance experts contributing to the debate represented the Asian
Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, African Development Bank, PGGM
(a Dutch pension fund), water.org (a large micro-credit lender active in developing countries), Kenya
Innovative Finance Facility for Water, Water Finance Facility, Kenya Pooled Water Fund, Rebel Group (a Dutch
financial consultancy), Climate Bonds Initiative, Climate Fund Managers, and NautaDutilh (a Dutch law firm).
The case to move forward
A broad consensus arose on the following.
Large, and growing investments are being required across the world to attain the SDG 6 goals and to improve
the security and resilience of the water systems. Most governments increasingly recognize the pressing
nature of this agenda but do not know well how to move expeditiously forward on it and generate the
required finance.
The water sector and the financial sector do not know each other’s perspectives and requirements; they use
very different languages and share almost no track record of collaboration. Financiers prefer ‘big and boring’
operations and perceive water investments as too risky and associated with too high transaction costs, and
the water sector as an unreliable and immature environment.
Public financing is likely to remain significant as water services and water resource management have
pronounced public-good characteristics, but in relative terms public financing will increasingly lag behind the
needs. Thus, private capital will play a growing role in water financing. Private financial institutions are
increasingly responsive to this, partly because of the business opportunity and partly to meet Environmental,
Social and Governance (ESG) ambitions.
The funding of water organisations can be composed of tariffs (fee-based payments by customers), taxes
(e.g. real estate taxes that pay for flood protection) and transfers (e.g. subsidies). Key investment concerns
of financiers are: number of investment opportunities (projects), tariff policies and their politics, customer
attitudes, climate risk, and the certainty of revenues (cash flow and revenue generating potential). Private-
sector financiers treat stable subsidies as an important part of revenue. To channel capital to water
organisations, several financing instruments are available3. Financiers distinguish between concessional debt
(where the financier works with the debtor on the preparation of the project), commercial debt (where a
3 Loans (usually from banks) and bonds are the most common instruments for water investments. Intermediary institutions (IIs) and Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) typically pool funds from different partners or other sources and apply this capital to structured capital demands from water organisations. Examples are the Netherlands Water Bank, the Shandong Green Development Fund in China, and the Kenya Pooled Water Fund. IIs have knowledge of the water sector and its investments, and of the local capital markets. Water.org seeks capital from capital markets and on-lends this through microfinance to rural and peri-urban poor households, typically US$50 – 500 at a time, to be paid back in 12-24 months. Public-private Partnerships (PPPs) such as concessions and leases where a private operator takes over management and (sometimes) investment are well-established in some parts of the world but the model has also shown limitations. Equity (buying a share) is less common and applies typically to cases where the water organisation is a private entity (like the water utilities in England and Wales) or has a clear commercial purpose (such as for corporates, or for bulk water or industrial water supply, port development, and hydropower).
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financier finances e.g. a local government or utility as a whole, rather than by individual project) and project-
based debt. Financiers prefer pooled funds and structured debts because these help lower risk and
transaction cost. They generally also prefer to furnish finance over longer time frames to organisations that
they have come to trust, where a track record has been built. As a rule, the entry of a private financier in a
water organisation brings more rigor and discipline to that organisation—in the case of (inter)national bond
emissions more so than with ‘neighbourhood bank finance’.
In the developing and emerging economies, many water organisations such as utilities are in a definite albeit
slow process of transition towards better financial stability. Water utilities are struggling to reduce Non-
revenue Water and raise tariff income. Yet, water users/ customers are increasingly willing to pay for the
service but utility managers and local politicians tend to lack know-how and, therefore, confidence to
implement an effective policy. Water regulators are more open to entry of private capital but national
governments and the capital-market regulators are reluctant due to lack of familiarity. Many water utilities
are still too small to muster managerial and financial competence and need to amalgamate with other utilities
to reach scale and expertise. Utilities, regulators, national government and financiers would benefit from
wide-ranging and professional peer-learning and capacity development.
A major hurdle to attract private capital is limited experience and readiness to explore alignment between
often very different supply and demand options for capital and case-specific structuring of deals. An option
to lower the overall risk profile is to combine different utility types (water, power, transport, etc.) in a
municipal or regional corporation, as power and public transport often offer more robust business cases thus
‘cross-supporting’ the water activities. More private capital can be attracted by combining (blending) it with
risk-bearing capital from public sources or philanthropic or impact investors and/or guarantees. Sharper
positioning of the instrument also helps, e.g. the Tamil Nadu Infrastructure Fund Management Corp. offers
concessional finance for a period of 7 years which is typically the critical period of construction and launching
during which little income is generated for the agency. The new SDG Indonesia One is a platform with 4
windows catering to the appetite of donors and investors to support achieving the SDGs, namely for project
preparation, de-risking, financing, and equity funding. The Climate Investors 2 fund offers 3 windows: for the
development of the proposal; for equity during the construction phase; and for refinancing during
operations. The Kenya Pooled Water Fund raises capital from the local capital market and from Kenyan
pension funds that have a preference for long tenors, and works with donor funds and guarantees; this avoids
currency risk and lowers risks in general for private partners.
The main bottleneck is, however, the shortage of ‘bankable’ proposals: the water sector appears as a
whole—though numerous exceptions do exist—rather unable to articulate investment proposals (projects)
with an adequate business case, or the organisations themselves are not creditworthy. Few water
organisations thus far can certify that they are financially sustainable, apply standard economic analyses (Net
Present Value, Financial Internal Rate of Return, etc.) on their investments, and standard accounting
procedures (notably International Financial Reporting Standards, the standard in the EU, and Generally
Accepted Accounting Principles, the standard in the USA); too few local governments or water organisations
are credit-rated. Nonetheless, in each country a sizeable number of utilities and water organisations aim to
become creditworthy and are seeking know-how for achieving this goal. Such success stories can be
described and replicated.
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The production of bankable proposals is in most instances not simply a matter of delegating this task to an
outside consultant—often recruited and paid by the financier through so-called Project Preparation Funds—
who formulates the project investment proposal for the water agency. The ‘bankability’ involves more than
the quality of the design of that individual project as the financier will seek assurance regarding: (1) the
quality of the project design proper, (2) the business case of the investment and whether the projected
revenue stream is realistic, can be guaranteed and will become available for repayments, and (3) the
governance and creditworthiness of the organisation itself as it will need to manage the project and
guarantee the repayments. To meet project criteria 2 and 3, the competency and capability of the
organisation itself must be strong.
Developing institutional capacity
A large agenda for institutional capacity development and for a process of learning is apparent. This should
be aimed at:
The management of water organisations, water utilities and local governments – to enhance their
understanding and appreciation of the need to achieve financial sustainability and meet the criteria
for creditworthiness, to become able to formulate ‘bankable’ investment proposals, and to negotiate
with financiers,
The guidance of local water professionals who generally are technically knowledgeable yet would
benefit from guidance on the preparation of ‘bankable’ proposals that meet criteria of financiers,
The financial sector – to enhance their understanding and appreciation of how the water sector
operates, its inherent demand for capital, and how to devise financing instruments that suit the
business case and the characteristics of the water sector,
The national government, including the water and capital-market regulators – to enhance their
understanding and know-how on the facilitation of private financing of the water sector.
The customers of water services and the public, on the importance of tariffs as condition for
sustained service.
Importantly, priority effort is required to develop capacity to identify, prioritize and prepare ‘bankable’
proposals and simultaneously develop creditworthy organisations. This needs to be done through training
workshops, coaching, technical assistance and sessions in which water sector professionals and financiers
jointly learn hands-on to solve problems. Both sides need to learn to communicate with each other, get the
demand for and supply of capital better aligned, and start developing mutual trust. Project Preparation
Funds will be more effective if they are structured as hands-on learning platforms (instead of just producing
technical documents by consultants as is often the case) putting responsibility in the hands of the water
agency, not the financier. While such approach is less expedient than having consultants prepare the
documents, it is a less risky avenue and simultaneously supports a change process of the agency towards
more creditworthiness.
For the water sector, specific capacity development should include the following:
Training, benchmarking and peer-learning on how utilities and other water organisations can become
creditworthy—this concerns mundane training topics, that are well-known and are equally applicable
to the power and transportation sectors;
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Training, benchmarking and peer-learning on achieving higher tariff collection rates, balancing the
books and, ultimately, on becoming financially sustainable, creditworthy organisations;
Training and peer-learning on available financing instruments and how to explore the capital markets
to find a suitable arrangement to attract capital.
The knowledge gained after training needs to be Institutionalized within water service organisations
and ‘ring fenced’ in order to not lose experience and expertise.
For the financial sector, specific capacity development should include the following:
Training and joint leaning on the characteristics, risk profiles and governance systems of different
types of water organisations;
Training and joint learning on devising suitable financing instruments and structuring, jointly with
other financing partners, to achieve acceptable risk profiles and returns.
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2020 Delft Agenda for Action – Knowledge and Capacity for Water Management
-- Capacity to support knowledge-sharing and learning among
individuals and organisations, and across civil society –
The debates were led and moderated by Julienne Roux (Global Water Partnership, Sweden), Damian Indij
(CapNet - UNDP, Argentina), Wim Douven (IHE Delft, The Netherlands) and Nadine Sander (IHE Delft, The
Netherlands), with additional contributions by Kerstin Danert (Ask for Water, Switzerland) and Jean-Marie
Kileshye Onema (Executive Manager, WaterNet, Southern Africa)
Capacities are needed to develop and sustain partnerships, to co-create knowledge and learn with different
actors including local communities, and to experiment with and learn via methods and approaches that can
support us.
The debates were organized in three topics and enabled the identification of valuable recommendations for
actions, strategies and innovation. Although these are presented according to each specific topic, they
conform a transversal and unified set of recommendations for effectiveness and innovative water capacity
development.
On partnerships:
● Action: skills for increased partnerships: Strengthen skills to develop and maintain demand-driven
collaboration and partnerships, including leadership and facilitation competencies and social and
cultural aspects and human relationships. Such skills and competencies should be part of the
formation and continuous training of water managers.
● Strategy: long term vision and coordination: Partnerships are dynamic, and can change over time.
They need coordination to be sustained in time to lead to transformation. There needs to be room
to experiment with and learn from different kinds of partnerships. An extended set of indicators is
needed to recognise their value, considering intangible gains and without the indicators leading to
too much focus on the quantitative value of partnerships. Equal importance should be given to social
aspects and human relationships.
● Innovation: the expansion of partnerships: The key corner stones to look at: A dynamic relationship
between requesting organisations and Capacity Developers, Science and Implementers, with an
important role for Youth being represented in all three groups
On engaging local actors (for instance communities, organisations, enterprises and governments):
● Action: two-way communication flow: Listen to the local actors. It is important to follow a two-way
flow of communication when engaging with local communities, to enhance buy-in and ownership.
● Strategy: demand-driven, collaborative partnerships: We should not assume communities will
‘need’ us and will be willing to engage with us in our activities. Also, recognize and identify various
types of communities. Community ideas and local ideas should be central. We learn together, from
each other: co-engaged learning.
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● Innovation: diverse reaching out: Local leaders, traditional leaders, faith leaders, students, natural
leaders, form an effective link. Also, important to recognize a ‘data and information bridge’ is often
needed between communities and government. A range of approaches can be used, such as
traditional communication mediums, faith-based groups, targeting specific community clusters and
groups, town hall meetings, street plays, individual sensitization. This should be context-specific and
can be synergetic.
On methods and approaches:
● Action: mix of methods: learning for sustainable development demands different approaches and
practices, for example user networks (such as Communities of Practice), access to
experiences/practice, sharing of experiences, on-the-job training and coaching, peer-to-peer
learning and collective learning approaches. COVID-19 offer opportunities for other methods, but we
should keep in mind to reach out to those excluded by these new methods.
● Strategy: co-constructing knowledge: construction of knowledge should be user centred,
participatory and should facilitate knowledge sharing and learning from each other. Approach should
be localised to suit the intended target groups, link with their beliefs, values and needs. To achieve
sustainability (local) governments should make funding available to turn capacity building more
structural.
● Innovation: to experiment: Going beyond disciplinary and curricular approaches into experiential
learning and lending more attention to soft skills development. Room for experimentation on
different methods of knowledge sharing and learning (see above) and (more) flexible funding to
support this is needed. This requires a shift in traditional capacity development models.
Mentioned before and over and over again: time and long-term funding are aspects mentioned in all sessions
by different participants and in different ways as important vehicles to support meaningful capacity
development activities.
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2020 Delft Agenda for Action – Knowledge and Capacity for the Water Sector
-- From data collection to information services –
Discussions centred on two topics: (1) how to improve data re-use, focusing on the data providers and on
capacity development, and (2) data and tools for water applications, focusing on the data users.
The webinars were hosted by IHE Delft, Deltares (a hydraulic consultancy and research organisation), UNEP
GEMS/Water4, ICWGC5 and IGRAC6. Participants represented international organisations, knowledge
institutions, NGOs and consultants.
Focus on data infrastructure, and develop capacity for data services
Data in itself is free, but the data-related and information services are critical to the users and therefore have
to be developed. Thus, investments in the data infrastructure need to grow; unfortunately, many
investments seem to result in duplication of work. The global information supply services should be adopted
by local governments and NGOs. The new digital economy works not only well for Big Tech but also for
information services. The model consists essentially of people paying by surrendering some privacy in the
form of personal data valuable to the service provider, and the service provider thereupon delivering its
services at no charge. An example of this model is the GEOGloWS ECMWF Global Streamflow Services7:
instead of providing raw data, this infrastructure provides integrated services globally to hydro-
meteorological organisations, local governments, NGOs, businesses and the GEO partners. Besides web-
based services, the service providers should also provide APIs8 to be used in custom web applications. At the
local level the investments for data acquisition and development of tools and services should be minimized
and the use of global information services should be maximized.
Thus, it is critical to build institutions able to provide information services, not just data. This requires not
‘one size fits all’ approach, but to ensure optimal alignment with each specific, local demand, a need exists
for local co-design and co-production. Capacity building should therefore address on the one hand the use
of these services at local governments and NGOs and on the other hand adaptive implementation of these
services incorporating local needs in addition to local data collection and generation.
Earth observation in the water sector, focus on in-situ observations
Providers of (in particular) in-situ water data are mostly national authorities. Often they need enhanced
capabilities for collection, harmonization and validation of data, as well as resources. The operational
experiences of the GEMS/Water system underscore this point. The data centres, the Global Terrestrial
Network-Hydrology (GTN-H, a global network of networks), and other organisations, even if under the
auspices of UN organisations, cannot dictate commitment or action by the respective governments. The
4 United Nations Environment Programme / Global Environment Monitoring System for Freshwater. 5 International Centre for Water Resources and Global Change, Koblenz. 6 International Groundwater Resources Assessment Center, Delft. 7 The GEOGloWS European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) Streamflow System represents a daily 51-member ensemble streamflow forecast for over 1 million river reaches across the globe. 8 An API (Application Programming Interface) is a software interface allowing two or more applications to communicate.
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support to the service providers depends on decisions of sovereign states, to which the international
institutions contribute.
In-situ data is crucial in the national and global systems and is the responsibility of the country’s government,
but sharing does not come automatically. Public organisations are expecting to get something in return for
collecting and sharing their data (e.g. a return on the investment, or compensation for the operational costs
of data collection and management, or a benefit in another form). A way forward is to offer a public service
to the countries that is valuable to them, in return for their in-situ data; such win-win situation would allow
to move away from a too limited cost recovery business model.
It requires a different mind-set to treat data provision as a public, not just an economic good. Public
institutions are able to generate more added value to the data than private actors, and it does not make
sense to commercialize these public goods.
Key findings on stakeholder needs for monitoring water quality
GEMS/Water conducted a global assessment of the freshwater quality monitoring in different regions. These
are the main findings:
Hardly any country expressed confidence in the monitoring programme design;
Few countries felt they had adequate knowledge and training in field skills;
Analytical capability was generally good although often not well resourced;
Around half of the countries did not have adequate quality assurance in place;
Most countries felt they needed assistance with data management and data assessment (EU
countries and North America were not assessed);
Most countries felt they had inadequate knowledge about groundwater quality monitoring;
Most countries were not aware, or had very limited knowledge of alternative approaches to
monitoring and assessment of water quality.
Sharing of data and tools
Water management and policy making at various levels would be greatly enhanced by the development and
implementation of open-source tools and standards for managing and exchanging water data within and
between organisations at sub-national, national and international levels. The exchange of data in the water
domain, however, is not as advanced as in other technical domains such as atmospheric science. This may be
due to, for example:
● The risk that shared data may be (mis)used to raise accusations in the context of transboundary
conflicts on water quality;
● The challenge of countries to gather data in a centralised system from scattered sources;
Data being often made available to external users only in aggregated, less specific formats, possibly
because those generating the data are not fully confident of their methods.
GEO9 was established in 2005 to make remote sensing data available more widely. A key observation is that,
by default, countries do not share data. The prime external driver for that is the concern that other countries
9 The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) coordinates international efforts to build a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).
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can use the satellite-based information for negative purposes, and that it is, thus, better to control the data
and the interpretation yourself. As a rule, the more democratic a country is the more open it is in sharing
data. However, in the EU public agencies apply a cost recovery policy so although data is public, not all data
is shared for free. (For example, the EU’s Copernicus programme has in effect added confusion by supporting
the private sector to develop such public services.) In areas where there is no clear innovation spurred by the
private sector, such as in environment, the private sector’s added value is limited and the benefits of public
services are all the more apparent.
In the US, public data is openly shared by default. The costs recovered by commercial data services and
public-private partnerships are negligible compared to the leverage and global influence that is derived from
the sharing of information services for free. This is especially true in the current geopolitics. If the complete
chain from data collection to sharing through services is not open, confidence and trust among partners or
between countries are undermined. Going towards open global services in return for making in-situ data
available, is key to solutions.
Better coordination of investments
Better coordination between bilateral, multilateral and private-sector investments in water data, tools and
infrastructures would generate synergies and reduce unnecessary spending (e.g. GTN-H data centres offer a
long-term commitment to the in-situ realm).
Historically, investment priority has been for hardware that often ended up not being used. Thus, it is of even
higher importance to direct investment to software, including capacity development, and this should be
reflected in budgets. Investments in hardware tend to be for the short term as hardware ages rapidly and
runs down. Capacity development is a long term investment. Funds should be spent on increasing the
understanding of data generation rather than for buying the hardware. A shift is already being observed in
capacity development projects where the teaching software is moving from computers to cloud-based data
and processing.
GEO also advocates to reduce investments in hardware in aid packages. On the other hand, however,
investments are needed for infrastructure hardware to support the global services and combine investments
in regional forecasting centres.
The symposium workshop participants were asked in a poll if they know best-practice examples of long-term
external funding from which nations benefit. Interestingly, 86% answered that they don’t know such
examples. Efforts are therefore needed to share best-practice examples.
Sustainable capacity development
Development of online materials is essential for increasing the accessibility to information. The current Covid-
19 crisis has catalysed this process. In the same vein, training of trainers helps reduce dependence on external
organisations and strengthen local ownership.
Capacity development should focus not just on one part of the data chain, but cover the full data journey
from design of data collection to data use for action. This should also include co-design of the capacity
development programme and activities with the stakeholders instead of adopting a donor-driven top-down
approach.
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To be successful it is important to identify the motivation for capacity development at different levels, and
coordinate the capacity development, e.g. achieving the national commitments for SDGs must be associated
with appropriate and effective data collection.
An important over-arching objective of data collection and management is to empower citizens to be able to
check data and information issued by government.
Data and IT skills
It is generally observed that IT skills are shifting towards cloud-based services. Will every water scientist or
expert in public agencies have to become a computer or data scientist? A poll among symposium participants
suggests that 44% believe that this is partly needed, while 28% believe that it is essential and a same number
says that it is not needed. The panel concluded that even high-level experts should be cognizant about data
sharing principles, but mid and low-level practitioners need to know about the details and should have
expanded IT skills.
A new opportunity for ‘leapfrogging’ is emerging as cloud services are becoming more readily available. This
will reduce the need that water scientists must acquire the specialised IT skills. However, to make this work,
investments in the key physical infrastructure notably the internet, are necessary. This development would
also potentially create new opportunities for the Global South.
Learning tools
Capacity development can be fitting at different levels. It can be driven by institutions or individuals, which
affects the motivation and effectiveness of the capacity development. Personal development plans set by
organisations can be an important instrument to bridge the gap between personal development and
institutional needs.
It is generally observed that a more effective approach in capacity development is to first monitor and
evaluate performance in order to find strengths, with the intention to then improve what people are already
good at instead of helping them to be less weak.
Competence development should be designed to be followed by action. The higher-level competencies must
be emphasized, focusing on the interpretation and more integrated use of data at the different stages and
levels of decision making (water body, catchment, national, etc.).
An important but challenging task currently is collecting appropriate data for the monitoring of the SDGs. For
example, for SDG 6.3 sufficient capacity appears available to collect, analyse and store water quality data,
however data is often reported to be collected in a haphazard way, and lack of accurate understanding of
ambient water quality vs drinking water quality makes it difficult to synthesise the data for systematic SDG
reporting. The EU directives, such as the Water Framework Directive and the Flood Directive, are a suitable
example where capacity was built to develop a more integrated view on water data, including on
transboundary waters.
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Key challenges and priorities
The world is changing rapidly and skills can get quickly outdated. Capacity development providers such as
universities, however, are stuck with institutional structures that are rather inflexible and often don’t
encourage innovation. Similarly, specialized higher education degrees often lead to promotion of
professionals to managerial positions, meaning that the acquired skills are in practice not applied.
Capacity development needs to adapt to this ever changing environment, and students/ trainees should
become actors in capacity development rather than receivers of knowledge. This requires capacity
development providers to re-think how to make capacity development more effective and sustainable.
Institutional structures (such as in universities) should also adapt to this approach. Academic and professional
degrees may in the future not be the only way to confirm competence, given the increasing amount of open
educational resources offered on the internet without diplomas or credits. This offers life-long learning
opportunities to participants with great intrinsic motivation.
The focus of capacity development providers should not be on needs-based assessments (‘filling gaps’) but
rather focus on creating and exploiting opportunities. Finally, ‘un-learning’ of poor practices and dealing with
uncertainty are due to become key areas for further work.
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-- List of main contributors –
Key-note speakers and Panel members
Prof Eddy Moors, Rector IHE Delft
Mr Henk Ovink, Special Water Envoy to the United Nations, The Netherlands
Dr Yasir Mohamed, Minister of Water and Irrigation, Sudan
Dr Veena Srinivasan, Sr. Fellow, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, Bengaluru, India
Ms Oyun Sanjaasuren, Director, Green Climate Fund, Seoul, and former Minister Environment and Green Development, Mongolia
Dr Thomas Panella, Manager, Water Unit, Asian Development Bank, Manila
Dr Wambui Gichuri, Director, Sanitation and Water Development, African Development Bank, Abidjan
Mr Osward Mulenda Chanda, Sanitation and Water Development, African Development Bank, Abidjan
Prof Charles Vörösmarty, Professor Earth Sciences, City University of New York
Prof Lant Pritchett, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and RISE Research Director, Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University
Wouter Lincklaen Arriëns, Transformation.First Asia, former Lead Water Specialist, Asian Development Bank, Manila
Dr Silver Mugisha, Managing Director, National Water and Sewerage Corporation, Uganda
Prof Damir Brdjanović, IHE Delft, The Netherlands
Dr Lidia Brito, Regional Director Latin America, UNESCO, former Minister Science and Technology, Mozambique
Prof Guy Alaerts, Professor Capacity and Knowledge Development, IHE Delft, former Program Manager Water Resources, The World Bank, Washington, DC
Track discussion leads and moderators
Dr Ellen Pfeiffer, IHE Delft, Chief rapporteur
Dr Wim Douven, IHE Delft
Ms Nadine Sander, IHE Delft
Mr Damian Indij, Cap-Net/UNDP, Buenos Aires
Dr Håkan Tropp, SIWI, Stockholm, former Water Governance Unit, OECD, Paris
Dr Hans van der Kwast, IHE Delft
Dr Stephan Dietrich, International Centre for Water Resources and Global Change, Koblenz
Dr Thomas Recknagel, International Centre for Water Resources and Global Change, Koblenz
Dr Arnaud Sterckx, IGRAC, Delft
Dr Claire Furlong, IHE Delft
Dr Jenniver Sehring, IHE Delft
Ms Zaki Shubber, LLM, IHE Delft
Ms Rozemarijn ter Horst, IHE Delft
Dr Uta When, IHE Delft
Dr Monika Weber-Fahr, Sr Water Adviser, The World Bank, former CEO, Global Water Partnership, Stockholm
Ms Julienne Roux, Global Water Partnership, Stockholm
Ms Kerstin Danert, Ask for Water, Switzerland
Dr Jean-Marie Kileshye Onema, WaterNet, Southern Africa
Mr Sipho Mosai, Chief Engineer, Rand Water, South Africa
Dr Fawcett Ngoatje, Rand Water, South Africa
Ms Wayida Mohamed, Rand Water, South Africa
Dr Nemanja Trifunović, IHE Delft
Mr Armindo Laissane Dimande, Fundo de Investimento e Património do Abastecimento de Agua FIPAG, Mozambique
Dr Emanuele Fantini, IHE Delft
Dr Jiang Yong, IHE Delft
Mr Piet Klop, PGGM Pension Fund Managers, The Netherlands
Dr Leon Hermans, IHE Delft and Delft University of Technology
Prof Chris Zevenbergen, IHE Delft
Prof Marió Franca, IHE Delft
Prof Margreet Zwarteveen, IHE Delft
28
Scientific Advisory Committee
Prof Eddy Moors, Rector, IHE Delft
Dr Håkan Tropp, Program Director Capacity Development, SIWI, Stockholm, former Head, Water Governance Unit, OECD, Paris
Dr Rose Kaggwa, Director Business and Scientific Services, National Water and Sewerage Corporation, Uganda
Dr Thomas Panella, Manager, Water Unit, Asian Development Bank, Manila
Mr Jacobus Veerman, Sr. Water Advisor, Asian Development Bank, Manila
Dr Wambui Gichuri, Director, Sanitation and Water Development, African Development Bank, Abidjan
Dr Maimuna Nalubega, Lead Water Specialist, Sanitation and Water Development, African Development Bank, Abidjan
Dr Kalamithy Vairavamoorthy, Executive Director, International Water Association, London
Dr Asief Alli, Rand Water Academy Programme Manager, Rand Water, South Africa
Dr Youssef Filali-Meknassi, Director, Division of Water
Sciences, Secretary of the International Hydrological
Programme (IHP), UNESCO, Paris
Mr Michiel de Lijster, Program Manager Netherlands International Water Ambition, Netherlands Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management,
Dr Maria Pascual Sanz, Programme Management Officer, Global Water Operator Partnership/UN HABITAT, Barcelona
Mr Damian Indij, Coordinator of the Virtual Campus, Cap-Net/UNDP, Buenos Aires
Organising Committee
Dr Johan van Dijk, Business Director, IHE Delft
Prof Guy Alaerts, Professor Knowledge and Capacity Development, IHE Delft
Dr Catherine Cotton, Corporate Communications Advisor, IHE Delft
Mr Jasper Hondelink, Secretary to the Committee, IHE Delft
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