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.

27

-- 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