One of the Blue Deal’s solutions is in the OECD Handbook of What Works. This handbook is all about actionable solutions for improving water governance.
This handbook was presented on May 23, during a session at the World Water Forum in Indonesia. Luzette Kroon, Chair of the Blue Deal steering committee, was one of the speakers for this session.
The Blue Deal’s solution is featured at #52. Here you can find more information about monitoring the progress in water governance
From May 27 to June 7, 'Wetskills Water Challenge' takes place in Cartagena, Colombia. Colombian partners of the Blue Deal programme InspirAgua provide 2 interesting cases that young water professionals will work on. 6 of these young talents participate through InspirAgua.
Programme manager Ellen Bollen: “With Wetskills we get a fresh look at water issues in Colombia. It is a great opportunity for young professionals to gain international experience and we are very curious about their solutions. So, it’s a win-win situation!”
Wetskills is a programme that brings together young people from all over the world. They spend 2 weeks searching for creative solutions to water problems in a changing world. Every year, there are Wetskills challenges in a number of countries across the continents. Wetskills already visited Colombia in 2018.
3 candidates from Dutch Water Authorities and 3 candidates from the Colombian Corporaciones Autónomas Regionales (CARs), among others, will be working on the cases. The CARs CDMB and Cundinamarca provide 2 of the 3 cases on behalf of InspirAgua. One case covers the unpredictable droughts in the Tona River. How can we create flexible water availability there? The other case concerns the Río Frío microbasin. How can we use water sustainably as a stimulant for socio-economic growth?
The results will be presented on June 7 at the Acodal international conference Water, Sanitation, Environment and Renewable Energy. InspirAgua will be present in the Dutch Pavilion of Holland House.
InspirAgua stands for cooperation and exchange for clean, safe and sufficient water in Colombia and the Netherlands. The Blue Deal programme aims to improve water conditions by 2030 for 15 million Colombians in the Rio Magdalena basin. The Blue Deal programme works with national and regional partners on climate-proof and socially inclusive water management. We are committed to making working plans for river basins, an adequate crisis organisation, knowledge and insight based on data, purifying wastewater, and prevention and enforcement of pollution. Through collaboration and knowledge exchange on these themes, we will become better water managers in both Colombia and the Netherlands.
From 18 to 25 May, a delegation from the Dutch Water Authorities (DWA) and the Blue Deal programme will attend the World Water Forum in Indonesia. The goal is to emphasise the importance of collaboration within the entire water (supply) chain in the international water sector.
During the World Water Forum, stakeholders from the entire international water sector come together. They collectively determine the global water agenda and share knowledge with each other. The Forum takes place every 3 years, each time in a different country. The delegation of DWA and Blue Deal highlights the importance of cooperation within the entire water cycle. This means that all partners in the water chain within a specific catchment area collaborate to address the broader interests of water. Local service providers (utilities, water authorities, municipalities, etc.) play a particularly significant role in this. It is therefore crucial that their technical, organisational, and financial capacities are in order. Only in this way can the goal of SDG6 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations be achieved by 2030.
In addition, the Blue Deal will meet up with various financiers within the water sector. The delegation emphasises the importance of long-term cooperation and sustainable financing for operation and maintenance. In this regard, the Blue Deal has recently entered into a collaboration with The Nature Conservancy, WaterWorX, and the NWB Fund. Together, these parties are exploring ways to finance projects around nature-based solutions. In Indonesia, the collaboration will be officially confirmed.
The delegation will participate as speakers in various sessions, including those organised by the OECD, The Nature Conservancy, UNESCO, The Water Footprint Implementation, and the High-Level Panel Navigating the Source-to-Sea Journey. The delegation will also hold discussions with the Islamic Development Bank and The Asian Development Bank. Additionally, there will be ample opportunity to further strengthen the network of the Blue Deal.
Luzette Kroon represents the delegation of DWA and Blue Deal. She is board member of the Association of Dutch Water Authorities and chair of the Blue Deal steering committee. She aligns her agenda closely with Meike van Ginneken, the Dutch water envoy.
Representatives from Blue Deal partnerships will also be present as speakers in various sessions. For example, one of the Young Experts from Blue Deal Peru has been selected to join the 6th General Assembly of the World Youth Parliament. She was selected from 640 applicants worldwide. She will also present her work within Blue Deal Peru in a couple of sessions.
In February, the Dutch Blue Deal team organised a Culture Day together with their Ghanaian Blue Deal colleagues. The main goal was to understand each other’s work cultures better. This ultimately helps in a more effective cross-cultural collaboration.
Since 2019, the Dutch Blue Deal team has worked together with several colleagues from the Ghanaian Water Resources Commission. During that time they got to know each other well. In the workplace, but also personally, outside of office hours. This has already created interesting situations and challenges in their cross-cultural communication. This could have something to do with cultural differences.
So the Dutch and Ghanaian colleagues took the time to ask themselves the questions: how well do we really know each other’s cultures? Do we know the mutual differences and similarities and how can we use them as advantages in our collaboration? During the recent working visit in February, all Blue Deal members travelled to Accra to create a Culture Map during a special Culture Day. We focused on having more in-depth conversations about each other’s cultures by discussing perceptions, cultural differences, and expectations, to improve certain work situations. Because your culture affects you as a person, but also how you act in the workplace and how you work together.
The common thread of this day was the Culture Map. This is a method by Erin Meyer that provides more insight into a work culture by evaluating a work culture on 8 scales. Consider, for example, the way of communicating: is it very direct and clear in your culture or indirect and do you have to read between the lines in a conversation? Or what about the power distance: is there always a strict hierarchy in the workplace or can you approach the boss directly? These are all questions that started the conversations. Based on concrete examples from the collaboration, they learned more about each other’s doings and actions. The result was a Culture Map of the Netherlands and Ghana in which differences and similarities are clearly mapped out on the scales.
The Culture Day has given the team more insight and understanding of each other’s culture, but it has certainly strengthened their bond. They now know better where someone else is coming from and also understand their own actions and frustrations better from time to time. This ultimately helps in a more effective collaboration. Some examples of the conclusions of the Culture Day:
It is valuable to take a moment to look at your own culture and others. Because you normally see the world from our own cultural perspective. Therefore, it is difficult to imagine that another culture might do things differently. But when you start to identify what is typical in your own culture, but different in others, then you can begin to open a dialogue of sharing, learning, and, ultimately, understanding. So take time to talk about each other’s work cultures and create your own Culture Map.
The Blue Deal also provides a mandatory training ‘Working with Other Cultures’ for Dutch experts who travel abroad for the Blue Deal. Read a report on one of these trainings.
Parts of Eastern Africa are being hit by floods caused by heavy rainfall. Unfortunately, this has already claimed many lives. This includes Kenya, where the Blue Deal has a partnership.
Blue Deal Kenya, together with partner Embassy of the Earth, has been exploring ways to support the government’s ambitious plans to clean up Nairobi rivers for quite some time. The water has now demonstrated that the problem is much larger than pollution alone. Large areas of informal settlements have been flooded, as well as newly built residential areas elsewhere in the city and, for example, the airport. Tens of thousands of people have lost their homes and possessions.
The government has established a Special Cabinet with a mandate to evacuate everyone in areas at risk, downstream from dams and riverbank zones. In the Thika Basin, where the Blue Deal programme and the Njururi Initiative are ongoing, with many dams for drinking water and irrigation, there is considerable disruption, and a landslide has claimed several lives.
Several more weeks of heavy rains are anticipated across the country. In Nairobi, our partner Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company (NCWSC) is doing what they can to remove any blockages in the sewage system. Our partner Water Resources Authority (WRA) is busy marking the flood line of various rivers in Nairobi and other affected areas, including the Tana Basin, where the Blue Deal is also active, and WRA is involved in evacuating people from these river zones. Dams are also being inspected; many dams are at full capacity, and the persistent rainfall also poses risks of dam breaches or severe flooding.
Over the past months, in addition to government agencies, we have also worked extensively with local community organisations in Nairobi – various groups, mostly comprised of young people, who have been dedicated to river restoration through waste management, park construction, etc. These groups are informally united as the Blue Angels and are crucial as first responders in the current crisis.
The Blue Deal continues to engage with the national government to provide support for the long-term future of Nairobi. It is possible that during this crisis period, the deployment of the Dutch Disaster Risk Reduction and Surge Support (DRRS) may also be requested, for which we are coordinating with RVO and the Dutch embassy.
InspirAgua is the Blue Deal programme on knowledge exchange in water governance in Colombia and the Netherlands. A technical conference was held from March 4 to 6 in Bogotá on the topics associated with the management of municipal wastewater.
This included topics such as: the remuneration rate for discharges, the management of rainwater, the management of bio solids, the control and permission of discharges into the sewage network, and the technical skills of the personnel in charge of the operation of the wastewater treatment systems.
The participants in this technical conference were the public service companies and environmental authorities that make up the regional nodes of Caldas, Huila and Valle del Cauca (Acuavalle, Aguas de Manizales, Corpocaldas, CAM, CVC and Empocaldas), Andesco, and ASOCARS. Also present were representatives of the ministries of Housing, City and Territory and Environment and Sustainable Development, the National Department of Planning, and Dutch Water Authorities.
The event had 3 thematic axes as emphasis: the remuneration rate, bio solids, control and permitting of discharges into the sewer. And of course there was an important exchange of experiences in the area.
“It was very beneficial, because we can conclude that the different actors who are here want the same thing. It is noted that although we are different entities between service providers and ministries, we agree that there must be greater coordination to achieve better results in the future,” says Hans Geerse, coordinator within the InspirAgua programme from Dutch Water Authorities.
Technical sessions dealt with the management of assets related to risks in urban sewage systems, such as experiences with the management of biosolids in the Netherlands. On the second day, a visit to the Salitre WWTP operated by the affiliated company Empresa de Acueducto y Alcantarillado de Bogotá (EAAB), allowed visitors from the Netherlands to see first-hand the technological level and size of one of the most important wastewater treatment plants in Colombia.
For the last day of the event, presentations focused on national strategies for monitoring and control, such as strategies for detecting illegal discharges and the relevance of the issue of permits (and the necessary adjustments) to improve the quality of surface waters. A Dutch example was given by Andras Koops, who presented the Dutch Water Innovation Prize winner ‘Facade control’ (see video in Dutch and Spanish).
At the end of the conference, a plenary session was held to reflect and find common points on all the topics addressed in the previous sessions. These included adjustments on the economic instrument of the remuneration rate, an update of the protocol for monitoring discharges, and a training plan for wastewater treatment plants operators. A joint agenda will be defined with ASOCARS and with the support of the Blue Deal. Technical spaces will be developed on control protocols for discharges into the sewer for the development of capacities of the affiliated companies. All in all, an important meeting of sector experts in favour of strengthening the sector and creating alliances and improvement strategies.
Aiming to increase our impact by joining forces! The Blue Deal teams up with The Nature Conservancy, NWB Fund and WaterWorX to work on water security, water safety and water quality. We’ll explore the possibilities for climate-resilient watershed investments for our projects and for mainstreaming nature-based solutions.
The water sector is challenged by too much, too little and too dirty water. Nearly half of global (drinking) water sources are significantly degraded, threatening the quality and quantity of water for communities, cities, farmers and business.
Nature is the foundation for water security. Nature-based solutions are a promising avenue to address our twin crises of water and climate. Watershed investment programmes result in climate resilient infrastructure and operations of water catchment authorities and water utilities but are complex and require cooperation and substantial expertise to organize.
Therefore, we team up. The watershed experts of The Nature Conservancy and NWB Fund, and the operational experts of the water authorities of the Blue Deal and drinking water utilities of WaterWorX join forces and pool their resources to develop, implement and finance Nature-based Solutions for water security.
The cooperation between The Nature Conservancy, NWB Fund, Blue Deal and WaterWorX aims to mainstream nature-based solutions and anchor these projects in water institutions to ensure sustainability of the impact. Together we have the expertise and resources to support water service providers to develop, finance and implement nature-based solution projects.
The work visit to the Netherlands of Blue Deal team from Eswatini in March was in a double transboundary setting this time. The partners from Eswatini kept passing borders. First from Eswatini to South Africa to the Netherlands, and then on to Germany for a 'Winter school'.
The week of the Winter school started on Sunday afternoon with a preparatory meeting with 2 Swazi’s, 2 professors from the Rhein Waal University and 1 colleague from Dutch Water Authorities. Monday morning, the Winter school welcomed 20 students from all over the world: Albania, Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Colombia, India, Pakistan, Cameroon, Kenya, Ghana, and of course from Germany.
The topics were developing inclusive water management in Eswatini, knowledge dissemination, and gender. At the beginning of the week experiences were shared on cultures in Eswatini and the various parts of the world. At the end of the week, the students were asked to come up with solutions to specific issues in Eswatini. An exciting and full week with insights from younger generations on inclusiveness, gender and not just water management.
The following days were spent in the Netherlands with meetings at Dutch water authority Vechtstromen, where they met, among others, with the Dutch company Royal Eijkelkamp and the NWB Fund on the project carried out by the KIWI’s, participants of the Dutch learning programme for the Blue Deal. It meant one less border to pass for the partners from Eswatini before travelling back to southern Africa.
On April 15, Esther Janssen conducted the training Working with Other Cultures, as part of the Blue Deal learning programme. 11 participants from various Dutch water authorities took part in the training. Janssen remarked: "Culture is a critical success factor for collaboration."
Janssen, owner of Culture-Inc., shares her experience from a work trip to Ethiopia last year. At the beginning of the trip, Ethiopian and Dutch colleagues made agreements regarding their collaboration. “Openness in communication is key,” they concluded. “But what does that mean exactly?” Janssen asked. “Does it mean I can say whatever I want?” The Ethiopians looked surprised, replying: “No, of course not!” This is just one example of how communication styles or meanings can differ among people.
This is why it’s crucial for colleagues in the Blue Deal partnerships to have insight into cultural differences for effective collaboration. Hence, it’s mandatory for all Dutch experts traveling abroad for work to undergo the Working with Other Cultures training. Many partnerships also organise similar activities with their entire team in the country where they operate.
What do the experts themselves want to learn during this training? One participant asks: “What should I absolutely avoid doing? Where do I cross the line? And why do I sometimes get no response at all when I ask a question during a presentation?” She recounts a workshop she conducted in Ethiopia where she received no response to questions posed to the group as a whole, whereas in the Netherlands she would have. “It’s like there’s an invisible barrier that I don’t see, but they do.” Other participants in the group also want to be more aware of the impact of their own (Dutch) behaviour.
Janssen first explains what culture actually entails. “Think of it as a computer’s default settings. It’s the habits, manners, and norms instilled since childhood. Within that group, everyone understands what you mean.” She continues: “Culture is essentially solidified history. To understand a group’s culture, you have to look at everything that came before it: the history, geography, defining moments.”
She also explains the different types of cultures into which countries can be categorised. For instance, the Netherlands belongs to the group of linear-active cultures. These cultures are characterised by direct communication style, trust in institutions, and little importance placed on hierarchy. In multi-active cultures, people often have a very active and emotional communication style, and status is based on charisma and connections. In reactive cultures, people often express themselves less, avoiding loss of face is crucial, and connections are incredibly important. Most Blue Deal countries fall under multi-active or reactive cultures.
And this, in turn, affects how you communicate, collaborate, what’s respectful, or what isn’t. While a Dutch person might feel offended if the other party doesn’t make eye contact during a conversation, in another culture, it might be considered respectful. And who do you greet first? In many countries, it might be considered respectful to greet the eldest or the leader first. How do you greet that person anyway? And what questions do you ask or avoid? Numerous examples of (minor) cultural differences that are still significant in collaboration.
What does this mean concretely? How do you deal with this? Janssen explains how important it is to give feedback in the right way. Dutch people can often be very direct, sometimes too direct. “Always start by mentioning the positive. And frame the aspects that are not going well differently. For example, as: what points do we still want to achieve or where do we see possibilities for further improvements.” Often, it helps if the partnership involves someone who can act as an intermediary. Someone who has grown up in the local culture but is also accustomed to working with Dutch people, so that this person can prevent any miscommunication.
“How far should you go in adapting to the other culture?” one of the participants asks. Because completely pretending to be someone else is obviously not the goal. Janssen responds: “And that wouldn’t be possible anyway. You can’t suddenly become entirely Chinese as a Dutch person, nor should you. But you can see what works. Which cultural buttons can you press to collaborate as effectively as possible?”
Are you an expert from Dutch Water Authorities and would you like to participate in this or another training from the Blue Deal learning programme? Please contact the partnership manager of your partnership or send an email to info@bluedeal.nl. These are the upcoming trainings:
In the first week of April, the Blue Deal Project team Tackling Drought Romania was welcomed at the Dutch water authority Noorderzijlvest by Roeland van der Schaaf, Chairman of the Board. They toured the North of the Netherlands to visit several projects with different tactics for tackling drought.
On the first day, the activities of Noorderzijlvest were presented in a short movie. After that, presentations followed about the Blue Deal project in Peru, the meeting in Bucharest of the bilateral panel, the activities of the Romanian partner Jiu Water Basin Administration, and the monitoring system used by Noorderzijlvest.
Michelle Talsma presented the STOWA project about combating drought in the Netherlands. She explained about the use of ESA satellite information about soil moisture, the Dutch Hydrological Instrument (NHI), measures such as Improvement of soil structure, Flexible water level management, Reduction of drainage, Fill in ditches, and the Use of climate resilient crops.
In the afternoon, we visited the Agricultural Research Centre SPNA in Munnikezijl. SPNA is an independent research institute driven by farmers. Director Henk Westerhof explained that experiments related to organic agriculture (approximately 49 ha) and conventional agriculture (80 ha) are carried out here.
Organic farming uses crop rotation, cover crops, no-till farming (not disturbing the soil), no chemical fertilisers or other chemicals. The idea is not to feed the crop but to feed the soil. The amount of organic material in the soil will grow, which causes less pollution, a more hydrated soil, and less problems with dehydration of the soil. This can create a situation with 200% more biodiversity and a 90% reduction of the input in the agricultural system. On the question what is needed to introduce innovative crops, Henk’s answer was that it is all about marketing.
The day ended with a field trip and a presentation about stakeholders management during the implementation of the project to strengthen the Lauwersmeer dam. The project consists of the strengthening and raising of the dike for the defence of local communities with a length of 9.2 km. In the future, seawater will be let into the lake to restore the natural habitat. Therefore, it is an integrated approach for water safety and biodiversity. The project centre was visited, a centre where all types of meetings related to this work are organised.
Silvia Mosterd (from Noorderzijlvest) stressed that the Lauwersmeer project started with spending time for getting to know all the stakeholders, including the farmers who depend on fresh water. The salinity of the water will be measured in the future to determine the saline zone and the fresh water zone in the lake.
The following morning, we toured the Wadden Centre, a facility dedicated to the restoration of the Afsluitdijk. This dike serves as a barrier separating a lake for the accumulation of fresh water, which supplies the drinking water system to, for example, the capital city of Amsterdam, from the North Sea. In the future, fish will be able to migrate from the sea to the freshwater reservoir.
On the island of Texel, ACACIA Water (Tine te Winkel) and representatives of the Dutch water authority Hollands Noorderkwartier (Klaas Sjouke de Boer and Arnold Longeveld) explained about the project Fresh Future. This project aims to treat fresh water and store water in 2 underground layers. It was mentioned that during the rainy season normally the surface water is pumped into the North Sea. Now this water is partly stored in the soil and can be used in the dry season for agriculture.
The monitoring plan for this project and the operating principle of the water treatment facility for agricultural irrigation were presented. The presented project was promoted by the farmers of Texel. In the rainy season approximately 44 million cubic meters of fresh water are pumped into the North Sea. In the dry season there are no fresh water resources on the island of Texel. This is why several options/solutions for water supply for agriculture have been analysed for farmers, such as building a polder, building a pipeline to connect the island to the mainland, or naval transport.
Farmers on the island of Texel have crops of seed potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, flower bulbs, wheat, and more. The soil has a good quality for all types of plants, but the water is not enough during the growing season for all species. The seed potato production is generally intended for export (Israel, Africa, Eastern Europe, Mediterranean countries, etc.).
The Dutch colleagues described the way the farmers are organised on Texel, the pilot projects implemented by them, the way of co-financing the projects, the cooperation of the factories interested in the problem of water management in areas affected by drought, the collaboration of farmers from the continental area with those from the island areas. It has been mentioned that without water no organism can develop in an ecosystem and without water, life will disappear.
On Thursday, workshop activities took place in the Ecomare complex on Texel. Discussions were opened related to the groundwater monitoring plan in the pilot area, the water balance and the Stakeholder CANVAS strategy. Action points were formulated to keep the project on track. On Friday, the Romanian delegation went home again.