Advocating an Expanded Approach to Collective Action for Water

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Advocating an Expanded Approach to Collective Action for Water

My point of view on expanding collective action to include cross-industry sector collaboration and actors such as water technology hubs/accelerators, entrepreneurs and investors. Our pace of innovation and impact is too slow. 

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Colorado river , Wikimedia Commons

Collective action is a key component of water stewardship as framed by organizations such as the Alliance for Water Stewardship and the CEO Water Mandate. These initiatives can be impactful at the watershed scale, as they engage multiple stakeholders in addressing shared water risks. But I believe something is missing to increase the rate of progress in addressing these challenges.

Essentially, it's a matter of how we mobilize diverse stakeholders ,  in particular across industry sectors, to address water challenges. In my opinion, there is an inadequate level of effort on building and implementing cross-industry and cross-stakeholder initiatives, especially ones that will help the solve water scarcity and quality issues related to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6 (the one focused on clean water and sanitation).

I formed this opinion after attending several global and regional water conferences over the past two months, It has become clear that despite best intentions and a recognition that solving water challenges requires a diverse stakeholder group, those focused on addressing water issues still operate in silos. 

Let me explain; keep in mind that these observations are a bit, or you may believe mostly, generalized. Every year I participate in a global water conference that is well attended (about 3,000 people) by academics, NGOs, the public sector, multinationals and individuals. The theme changes from year to year and has included issues such as water and energy, water and agriculture, etc.

While these topics are essential in the discussion of energy-water-food nexus risks, the event still struggles to attract major players from the agriculture and energy sectors. Many food and beverage companies attend, but global agricultural companies and traders are seldom present and smallholder farmers are under-represented. This is also true for energy and resource companies.

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