World Water Week Daily - Thursday 29 August, 2019

STOCKHOLM
waterfront
world water week daily | FRIDAY 30 AUGUST | 2019
“Each river pushed us, so we had to keep evolving our methods with a multidisciplinary team.”
Rivers push King to excel
TEXT | görrel espelund PHOTO | mikael ullén
Her love of animals brought her
to Africa. Several decades later,
Dr Jackie King, Stockholm Water
Prize Laureate, has changed
the way the world understands
river flows. We meet the woman
behind this achievement.
King grew up in England but wanted
to do something different, so in 1970,
aged 27, she left for Africa.
“I had this vision of Africa, the round
houses, the vast landscapes, the lions
and herds of antelope. I just knew I had
to be there,” she says.
In Johannesburg, South Africa, she
met her husband, who was also English,
before moving to Cape Town.
“I worked as a clerk in an insurance
office, but I wanted to move on. I was
accepted as a mature student at the
University of Cape Town, where I absorbed
knowledge like a sponge.”
Her PhD topics included freshwater –
and so it began.
“I liked being in the research field
and started to work full-time as a
scientist when my two children were
about 10 years old.”
King began to hear about rivers
failing around the world including in
South Africa. She was developing new
methods introducing ecological and
social factors to promote healthy rivers
and river flows. In 1991 she was approached
by the Department of Water
Affairs in South Africa.
“They were planning a number of
dams in the country and they wanted
to know how much water to leave in the
river. I asked them: what do you want
the rivers to look like in the future? They
didn’t understand what I meant so I
explained to them that if you change the
flow patterns you end up with a different
river. But it was all new thinking and
they said: we don’t know. You decide.”
Dr King and her team travelled the
country and assessed river catchments
from a number of perspectives including
conservation value, population,
industry and agriculture.
“For every river, we discovered new
problems and we had to add new experts
to our team. Each river pushed us, so we
had to keep evolving our methods with
a multidisciplinary team.”
The rest is history. On Wednesday,
King received the Stockholm Water
Prize for her ground-breaking research
on water flows.
“I have friends and colleagues from
around the world saying: we needed
this exposure, we needed people to
know that you’ve got to put the brakes
on killing rivers. They have felt that
they have all been recognized, that they
have all stood there beside me and that
puts an enormous amount of power and
energy into this discipline. Which is
wonderful.”
published by stockholm international water institute

FRIDAY: WORLD WATER WEEK DAILY
BRIDGING WITH BUSINESS
Substantive ways of driving public-private cooperation to improve water
resource resilience for all were discussed during the SIWI Business Leaders’
Breakfast – Driving Water Resilient Business Transformation.
This closed session drew together high-level decision-makers from the public
and private sectors as well as civil society to share priorities, experiences and
best practice, with the aim of promoting environmentally and financially sound
broad-based cooperation in water.
Opening the session, SIWI Executive Director, Torgny Holmgren, underlined
the importance of bringing in finance to fund water resilience, noting that water
“is still largely a public affair”.
“This is not about public, private, or NGO. This is not about individuals versus
institutions. This is about creating an enabling environment together,” said
Henk Ovink, Special Envoy, International Water Affairs for the Kingdom of the
Netherlands.
Usha Rao-Monari, Senior Advisor, Blackstone Infrastructure Group, urged
public and private sectors to explain to investors what is needed to “address
issues and define solutions”. Investors basically know what the issues are, she
said, what they need to know are the practical steps they can take, who they
could work with and what potential outcomes are.
“People have done a fantastic job of raising awareness around the issue of
water. But as a financier, I’ve got 10 million dollars, I want to do something with
it in water, but what shall I do? Please don’t talk to me about visions. What are
the real things I can get my head around? How would you bring finance into the
sector – at scale?”
Partnerships, cooperation
top stocktaking event
The annual high-level dialogue at World Water Week,
the so-called stocktaking event, focused on the need
for wider partnerships to achieve SDG 6. Several speakers
stressed the importance of public-private partnerships
and transboundary cooperation on a broad scale.
Representing the host country for COP 25, Chile’s
ambassador to Sweden, Hernán Bascuñán Jiménez,
stated that cross-sector discussions would be at the core of the upcoming
climate conference in Santiago.
“The success of the Paris agreement depends on our ability to talk to
each other. In December, we will bring together governments, civil society,
academia and the private sector,” he said.
Also present was the Indian minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, responsible
for the Ministry of Jal Shakti, tasked with water-related issues. He
stated that India has made a bold claim to provide every household in the
country with piped, safe drinking water by 2024.
Faith
in water
Faith-based actors are increasingly
acknowledged as partners
by the WASH sector, at the same
time as increasing numbers of
faith-based organizations show
a growing interest in WASH -
related issues. However, building
relationships between the
two requires time and mutual
respect. Collaboration between
the two sectors, and what they
can accomplish together, was
explored during the fourth
annual water and faith event
at World Water Week, Water
and Faith: Mobilizing local faith
actors to achieve SDG 6.
Four examples of how faithbased
actors can mobilize to
achieve SDG 6 were presented at
the session. Henk Holstlag, from
the Smart Centre Group who
trains communities in low-cost
technologies, highlighted the
importance of involving faithbased
organizations to ensure no
one is left behind.
“Faith-based organizations
are the oldest NGOs in the
world, they have a long-term
perspective and reach communities
others don’t. If a preacher
says: wash your hands, it makes
more impact than if Unicef tells
you to do it,” he said.
WWW IN NUMBERS
125
VOLUNTEERS –
HUGE THANKS TO YOU ALL!
GENDER BALANCE
48% women
0,26% non binary
51% male
AGE
Young professi onals: 32%
Senior professionals: 68%
138
COUNTRIES

YOUTH PERSPECTIVE IN FOCUS
AT FALKENMARK SYMPOSIUM
TEXT | ANDREAS KARLSSON PHOTO |MIKAEL ULLÉN
3
questions
to …
The room was packed with Stockholm
Junior Water Prize finalists when the
grand lady of water research, Malin
Falkenmark, hosted a session on
climate change yesterday.
In her opening presentation, Falkenmark
established that climate change is an
extremely confusing subject. There are so
many components to it and it is very difficult
to understand them all. Having said
that, she and all the other speakers agreed
on one thing: the situation is dire.
Johan Rockström, from
the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact
Research, told the young scientists that in
the climate debate, they have two trump
cards over the older generation: “Firstly:
you are the only ones who can truly speak
on behalf of the future. And secondly – and
more importantly: you speak the truth. You
are telling the world that we must all listen
to science and act accordingly. That is the
truth of the matter.”
Like Falkenmark before him, Rockström
painted a rather bleak scenario for the
future. He did, however, also assure the
audience that science tells us that the
window of opportunity is still open.
“We have about a decade to cut our carbon
dioxide emissions by half. That is an
enormous task, but if we can do it, we still
have a chance to save the planet.”
He also took the opportunity
to lash out at the
eco nomists who, rather
cynically, accept climate
change as part of the
calculation and claim
that due to the long perspectives
involved, the financial impact is
limited and therefore acceptable.
“I consider this to be highly unethical
and I find it disturbing that you can have
economic models that completely ignore
future generations like that.”
During the subsequent panel discussion,
Thomas Kunetz, Water and Environment
Federation, spoke about his childhood
in the US and how nothing was
wasted but rather reused.
“Today we call this ‘resource recovery’,
and it’s becoming fashionable. Back then,
long before the term ‘resource recovery’
was invented, it was a question of survival.
And honestly, that’s what responsible use
of resources still is, although on a much
larger scale.”
Some of the most enthusiastic ovations
were given to the Stockholm Junior Water
Prize winner, Macinley Butson, who stood
alongside established academics in the
panel. She concluded the session’s closing
round of one-line advise from panellists
by saying: “We don’t need to think outside
the box, we need to get rid of the box
altogether.”
CHIPANGO
KAMBOYI,
ZAMBIA, WWW&P WORLD
WATER WEEK JUNIOR
RAPPORTEUR
How can the water sector
fulfil the pledge to “leave
no one behind”?
“First of all, get rid of the
bureaucracy involved in
delivering planned interventions.
I think that one of
the barriers that causes the
water sector not to deliver
on what it says it should
deliver are the bureaucratic
processes in certain regions
of the world.”
What are the primary
barriers to greater cooperation
in the water sector
in Zambia and globally?
“Generally, communication
between different actors and
also competition. Different
actors want to access funding
to do different things
so in that sense they begin
to forget the core essence:
the people on the ground
who need clean water. In
Zambia, issues include inaccessibility
of certain areas
and human-wildlife conflict
over water.”
Malin Falkenmark and the Stockholm Junior Water Prize finalists.
What gives you hope for
the future?
“That we have so many
experts gathered here
who are passionate about
changing things, moving
away from business as usual.
People are focused on developing
new tech nologies,
new systems that get rid of
certain bureaucracies so as to
ensure that people that need
water get water at the right
time and in the right way.”

Changing social animals’ behaviour
TEXT | ANDREAS KARLSSON PHOTO |MIKAEL ULLÉN
Behavioural change is increasingly considered a valuable complement
to technical solutions in terms of sustainable water management,
according to discussions during a session yesterday.
One of the most recent examples of
swift and successful behavioural change
in relation to water is provided by Cape
Paula Caballero from Rare.
Town. As the city was fast approaching
the day when freshwater would effectively
run out, Capetonians were forced to
lower consumption dramatically. They
did. In a matter of months, total water
consumption dropped to a third of
previous levels, and more than a year
later it stands at just over half what it
used to be.
Several speakers at the Transformational
impact through behavioural
change session touched on this key
aspect: how do we make positive beha-
vioural change stick? Paula Caballero
from the NGO Rare, spoke about the
need to involve people in the process.
“Behavioural change is about a sense
of agency and empowerment. Top-down
approaches will rarely reach their full
potential. We must understand what
makes people tick.”
She said that we are social animals
and as such, emotions usually trump
reason. The fact that we care about
what others think, means that if one
individual changes, there is a good
chance that others will follow suit.
Her message was echoed by Andrew
Schein from the Behavioural Insights
Team. “We follow the heard, which can
backfire if we push people in the wrong
direction. So, the trick is to promote
positive change.”
world water week voices
What’s your water wish list for next year?
Michael Nwachukwu,
Federal Ministry of
Water Resources,
Nigeria
“A renewed
approach to
funding water at
the lowest level;
there is a need to
prioritise effective
funding for rural
and sub-urban
areas.”
Elise Schutte,
AfriPads, Malawi
“One of
the things we
discussed this
morning was that
we really want to
see the inclusion
of boys and men in
menstrual hygiene
management.”
Calden Gounden,
South Africa
“I wish
people would
stop wasting
water; and that
everyone around
the world could
be exposed to
areas that don’t
have water.”
Yoshito Suga, Ministry
of Land, Infrastructure,
Transport
and Tourism, Japan
“I’m responsible
for water resource
issues, so I want to
make many people
happy through
water. I want
people around the
world to be happy
through water.”
Diana Virgovicova,
CIWEM, UK
“I would like to
see a decrease in
the number of
people who can’t
afford drinking
water, and I would
like to see happier
children in Africa
and Asia.”
Sridevasena Allamaraju,
Ministry of
Drinking Water and
Sanitation, India
“I would like
to see less pollution
of water bodies;
an increase in
groundwater
potential; and to
plant more trees
to ensure we get
enough rains.”
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Publisher: Torgny Holmgren
stockholm waterfront daily • 25–30 AUGUST, 2019
SIWI EDITORIAL STAFF
Editor: Maria Sköld
Graphic Designer: Marianne Engblom
Tips and comments?
Contact us at: waterfront@siwi.org
WORLD WATER WEEK DAILY EDITORIAL STAFF
Görrel Espelund, Andeas Karlsson
and Nick Chipperfield
Photography: Thomas Henrikson
and Mikael Ullén