Collaborating & Learning

BEWOP4 supports knowledge management activities of water utilities that are engaged in Water Operators’ Partnership projects that are funded through the EU-WOP Programme. The full list of projects funded under the EU-WOP programme can be found here. Although focused on the EU-WOP projects BEWOP4 also closely works with the knowledge management team of the WaterWorX Programme.

Learn more by visiting the project website

The main objective of the FUTURE project is to strengthen the IHE Delft Alumni community by establishing regional and global working platforms, towards identifying the SDGs challenges and actions required in a post-pandemic scenario as well as the role and participation of the Alumni worldwide. Global and regional events will be carried out and their outcomes will lead to the creation and definition of working frameworks and roadmaps aimed to meet water-related SDGs, while creating project and funding possibilities (on education, research and capacity building) and promoting the water sector as a key player for development. In 2022 amongst others a first Online Refresher Course was organized in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAAC) region, titled ‘Post-pandemic actions in the Water sector in Latin America and Caribbean’ with 20 alumni from the region. This course will be used as example for the next two courses to be held in Asia and Africa. Moreover, we analysed and created a report on the 2020 IHE Delft Alumni survey on Lifelong Learning, which helps identify alumni needs and preferences of education.

Learn more by visiting this page

This event enabled the sharing of projects and knowledge from within the Water and Development Partnership Programme (phase 2) through presentations and conversations, as well as the discussion of activities, potential outcomes and suggestions to local organisations. 

The Water and Development Partnership Programme supports SIDS programmes in the form of capacity development as well as fellowships for students. The SIDS project aims to increase capacity of water professionals in SIDS to meet water-specific Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It furthermore works on building a stronger connection between research and education and improving institutional capacities and activities of communities of practice in the SIDS region. Learn more about the activities the Water and Development Partnership Programme supports in the SIDS region, by visiting the SIDS region page.

The past years, through the DUPC2 theme on Water Scarcity in the MENA region, many partners have met and collaborated as part of research and capacity development projects. All these partners have a shared interest in water scarcity challenges and potential strategies of solving these. It was therefore proposed to try and continue this joint engagement beyond the project lifespans by starting an e-community, an online network. The suggested set-up was to start with a simple platform, such as an e-mail group or social media group page, and to (at least once every month) post a call for proposals, symposium announcements, and such like, asking for responses from the members. In addition, the aim is to organise an online event twice a year and request the members to advertise the community in their own networks to facilitate growth of the community. Important element is to also meet face-to-face as this is where people will truly get to know each other and initiate joint activities, seeing value of the community, and become motivated to help sustain it.

Most countries in the MENA (Middle East and North African) region are listed among the world’s highest water stressed with the least renewable water resources per capita. The project "Supporting capacity development in the MENA region to cope with water scarcity” aims to Strengthen the Capacity of Professionals and Decision Makers in the water sector to improve water management in the MENA region countries to better cope with the challenges of stressed water resources under the impacts of climate change. The project will result in increased capacity of water professionals to meet water specific SDGs under global change, stronger links between research and education to support water specific SDGs, improved institutional capacities and active communities of practice in the MENA region, and open access online courseware through IHE’s website to support water scarcity solutions and sustainable development in the MENA region.

VIA Water was a Dutch programme that aimed to identify innovative solutions for water problems facing cities in the abovementioned seven African countries. The programme focused on twelve pressing water needs in African cities, such as more and reliable water harvesting and storage, good quality data gathering, access to drinking water, coping with floods. It connected curious researchers and creative entrepreneurs, innovative NGOs and progressive policy makers. VIA Water supported innovative projects financially through the VIA Water Fund and shared and enriched the knowledge obtained along the way in its VIA Water Learning Community.

Outcomes:

• A lively international Community regarding the water issues in cities in various parts of Africa. Young professionals from the African continent take part in the Community. Over 20% of the members of the Community are not in the water sector, and over 50% of the members will still keep in contact with each other outside the framework of the Community after 2018.
• 90 contracts for innovations had been agreed (of which 16 were successful), distributed reasonably across 7 countries and all defined pressing needs.

The programme was supported under the DUPC2 programme in 2016 and 2017, and continued under Aqua for All. Since a few years VIA Water has come to an end. The achievements of their unique incubation support programme are shared through their website (see below), which contains the track record of all VIA Water projects 2014-2019. They also extracted lots of lessons learned and tips and tops from more than 6o projects, which offers practical knowledge from experienced innovators to fresh innovators.

For more information, visit their website.

WaterNet is a regional network of university departments and research and training institutes specialising in water. The network aims to build regional institutional and human capacity in Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) through training, education, research and outreach by harnessing the complementary strengths of member institutions in the region and elsewhere. WaterNet member institutions have expertise in various aspects of water resources management and are based in Southern and East Africa.

WaterNet has developed its fifth strategy for implementation in the 2022-2026 period. This 5th the strategy covers Phase V of the Waternet implementation cycles and focuses on strategic issues that aim to address fundamental challenges to the Network effectiveness, impact and sustainability, while also taking into consideration the organisational dynamics and contemporary issues across the wide spectrum of the water sector in the Eastern and Southern African region.

The vision for Strategy V is “Strengthening human and institutional capacity for innovative, systemic and sustainable regional water solutions in a changing environment”. The Inception of Phase V of WaterNet was funded by the DUPC2 programme (project 110768). The project was implemented from January - December 2022.

For more information visit the website.

Prior to 2017, the WYN had identified a gap in knowledge about the existence of youth organisations and projects amongst young stakeholders, thus resulting in a significant obstacle to share experiences, knowledge and resources amongst each other. Such cooperation appeared to be especially relevant in a transboundary context and led to an interest in exploring the role of youth in transboundary water cooperation. This project aims to explore this role and furthermore develop a platform and supporting tools enabling the sharing of youth projects, youth organisations as well as their ideas and resources.

The project is divided into 4 interconnected phases:

1. YouKnow! platform - to host YouKnoW! (Youth-Driven Knowledge in Water) platform activities, identifying which youth organizations and projects are active in the region and connecting them actively through tools such as the Ideas Incubator, Research Lab and Strategic Forums. This activity prepares the network in the region and supports the identification of suitable young people to join the activities.
2. Capacity building - The YouKnoW! Activities importantly aim at promoting the sharing of
   ideas between young people outside of the WYN network, and promoting exchange of
   knowledge and activities amongst them.
3. Institutionalization - To identify opportunities for young people to contribute for a longer
   period, even after project completion, to improve transboundary cooperation
4. Scaling up - To support scaling up of outputs, we undertake two activities: Present the
   YouKnoW! Platform and tools to invite partners and grow the network.

This project started up in 2017, and finalized under DUPC2 in 2021. Nevertheless, their aim is to build upon the considerable past work of the project and continue their mission. For more information, view the project website.