Suiza participó activamente en la Semana Mundial del Agua, en diferentes sesiones de trabajo que priorizó, en el marco de los lineamientos de su Programa Global Iniciativas Agua. Compartimos las crónicas elaboradas por la Plataforma ResEAU de la COSUDE.

Swiss Booth Reception

As every year, a reception was organized in the Swiss booth. The Blue Peace Index was presented to the audience and was followed by a speech by Claudia Fontana Tobiassen, representing the Embassy of Switzerland in Sweden. The reception was successful and enriched by interesting discussion.

Roundtable on Water stewardship
Nadine Fragnière

IUCN and DFID convened actors involved in water stewardship in order to discuss progress and assess the reach and impact of stewardship activities to‐date. A presentation from the Lusaka Water Stewardship Initiative under the International Water Stewardship Programme (IWaSP) was provided as an example of an operating stewardship platform. Small group discussion followed to discuss key topics in the field such as the evidence of business case, collective action or cultural change.

Some lessons learnt: 1) A corporate social responsibility (CSR) approach is sometimes not seen as effective to attract enterprises and build concrete business cases. 2) the possibility of having a standardization system at local scale (municipalities) rather than at corporate level was discussed. This system could possibly attract municipalities to engage and invest in water stewardship 3) The importance of having a way of rewarding or benchmarking enterprises/municipalities was highlighted as a key enabler of participation in water stewardship 4) stewardship criteria should be adopted by investment companies.

Leaving No One Behind: Building Resilient Water and Food Systems
Xenia Kirchhofer

The session took a critical look at some of the challenges in building resilience in fragile contexts characterized by high levels of vulnerability. An IUCN case study from Palestine illustrated the four pillars of resilience: diversity, self-organization and governance, learning, and sustainable infrastructure and technology. USAID presented a case from Ethiopia, where technological innovation for remote monitoring of water points has been constrained by weak capacities and poor internet connection. An animated and participatory group and panel discussion focused on identifying further challenges as well as possible policy responses. The need for a systemic, multi-level and cross-sectoral approach clearly emerged from the discussion, while capacity, financing and data pose key constraints. Systemic change also requires patience and a long-term approach.

Online App : The World Bank Spatial Agent App provides access to a wealth of environmental data from around the globe.

Supporting SDG6 by advancing the water footprint tool
Kenneth Peralta 

The session discussion was on how the water footprint can be used to support achieving SDG’s (in particular SGD 6). The researchers provided an insight into current water footprint methodologies including the impact-dimension of water use, and how to use water footprint concept to push local solutions and mitigation measures.

As a producers, the opportunities for achieving SDG’s is that water footprint can support producers in analyzing water use along supply chains and develop mitigation measures. To address challenges they have to apply in scenarios by linking with information on yield and water use efficiency to address trade-offs between food production and natural ecosystems.

Meeting with the World Youth Parliament for Water (WYPW)
Nadine Fragnière 

The objective of the meeting was to gather youth networks (ISW, CAY4W, Young water solutions) and international organizations involved with youth ( SDC, SWP, GWP, UNESCO, RWSN, SIWI) to better align organizational strategies, objectives, and work.  Discussion focused on how WYPW can best facilitate a ‘youth strategy’ among partners and what donors and organizations could provide to the youth.

Main lessons learnt were: 1) donors and international organizations have a role in pushing internally for more youth involvement in their networks, partners, governing bodies 2) there is a need for the   development of clear guidelines on how to implement youth inclusion in strategies. 3) Indicators should be clearly defined in order to track youth inclusion progress (this should be made coordinately by youth networks and partners).

Leaving no one behind: Building resilient water and food systems
Aref Haza’ Alalaween Mufleh 

The resilience building examples were presented from different regions by World Bank , USIA .etc  followed by panel discussion articulated around : 

How can policy be effective in enabling the necessary choreography and coherence?

  • What does a policy framework to drive resilience in water and food systems look like?
  • What are 1-2 priority steps needed now to change the game on policy for building resilience?
  • Are there specific incentives or support actions that can help achieve coherence in policy needed for advancing resilience, especially in fragile contexts?

Recommendations:

  • Connect the researches with policy and actions on the ground for resilience building
  • Conflict zones need to be considered in the climate change vulnerability assessment
  • Communities are often discounted from the policy makers therefore involvement of local communities is key
  • Political well is needed to perform good resilience
  • Fast track interventions are very crucial for trust building between all the actors towards more effective work
  • Communication and dialogue need to be systematically perform
  • Establishing funding mechanisms at national level; part of the national budget
  • Empower politicians by providing relevant information to better understand the societal costs of not working on resilience
  • Create both formal and informal opportunities for practitioners to communicate and share ideas
  • Peace could be achieved by promoting environmental management with focus on water as same as what Blue Peace is doing

 Opening Plenary  
†Stéphanie Piers de Raveschoot

Overall : very diverse set of panelists, covering from environmental needs to respect of minorities (indigenous population and people with disabilities) to water stewardship.

Specific take-aways : 
Jackie King, Honorary professor, the South-African laureate for this year’s SWPrize :
SA’s last version of the Water Law only has 2 rights : the right for water for people (=human consumption), and the right for water for the environment à above industrial or economic considerations moving from minimum environmental flows to full river flow regimes (=over a full year), to respect the annual variability needed for nature cycle

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, UN Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples:
issue of coherence between the indigenous governance system & the national framework
there is a direct correlation between cultural diversity and ecosystem biodiversity

Ma Jun, Founding Director of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE), China:
sensitivity on data access and transparency
they created a “Blue Map” app, which has been growing exponentially, and has become a requirement from the Chinese government : reporting on the water quality of (now) thousands of measuring points around the country. à progress on environmental and safety transparency

More info http://wwwen.ipe.org.cn/MapWater/water.html?q=2

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La Agencia Suiza para el Desarrollo y la Cooperación (COSUDE) es la entidad encargada de la cooperación internacional dentro del Departamento Federal de Asuntos Exteriores (DFAE). Con otras oficinas de la Confederación, la COSUDE es responsable de la coordinación general de la cooperación para el desarrollo y de la cooperación con los Países del Este, así como de los programas de ayuda humanitaria suizos.