Water as Leverage for Sustainable Development

BY HENK OVINK

Bridging the gaps between communities, experts, policymakers, and financiers in developing a sustainable future for all.

Seventy percent of the world’s surface is covered with water. But only 0.4% of that water is ready for human consumption. Water is also critical for challenges and opportunities of health, biodiversity, and climate, and we see it: 90% of all disasters worldwide are waterrelated. Secretary-General António Guterres says, “This is the time of action but also the time of science and solidarity, of thinking, of understanding, and of partnerships, empathy, and collaboration.” We’re not moving toward this 1.5°C world. And we see it in the impact. More floods and droughts occur every year, and they’re happening everywhere.

The cities we invest in are most vulnerable to climate change. We tend to urbanize faster in places that are already risky along our coasts and rivers. And this is why investment capital is more at risk in the next decades. We have lists of cities that hit the bar of $200 billion or almost $300 billion at stake, Miami leading that list. And the world bank and OECD estimated there’s a trillion-dollar cost every year, let alone the risk.

There’s a financial and inequality aspect to that because the most vulnerable in these cities live in the most vulnerable places. There’s also a health cost because climate change is increasing health uncertainties. And there’s an environmental aspect with biodiversity loss. And in the heart of all these challenges is water. But at the same time, water can also be part of that solution, mitigating the risk and adapting for a better future.

But for that, we have to look at that future more holistically, more sustainably, because if we look ahead, we only replicate the mistakes of the past. There are business cases for debt infrastructure of yesterday, financial business cases with short-term returns. But with every dollar spent, we make ourselves more vulnerable.

Instead of continuing with our non-responsive approaches, moving in a reactive “let’s build better” approach. We have to become radically proactive, not go from crisis to crisis, but drive catalytic projects forward to build resiliency and sustainability in society.

We must start investing in people to capacitate them to implement and deliver on the projects we need. And we know from an economic perspective, if we do that, we maximize opportunities and their impact. Investing in water has a trickle-down effect across all the SDGs. It turns water into a leverage for sustainable development.

That means we have to integrate needs and opportunities, work across all scales and interests and take a sustainable perspective. Long-term comprehensive plans need short-term, innovative projects. With inclusive collaborations and a transparent approach, we can build capacity institutionally and individually.

We need design and planning to inspire. We need innovative, catalytic, and pragmatic solutions to spur actions. And we need solutions that connect across scales, times, and interests. If we really want to deliver on the promise of the sustainable development goals and the Paris Agreement, we have to move mountains. And changing course will demand inspiration, that political and societal capital that design can bring.

That means we have to invest in each other. We have to invest in and trust the process of bringing people together who might disagree, but because they are in a safe space, they can create opportunities that add value.

This part of building coalitions and alliances is the culture of the Netherlands and how we deal with water. Dating back over 900 years, we built institutional capacity for safe drinking water, protecting our coast, increasing the capacity of our rivers, opening up our streets to ensure the water can come in and go back to the aquifer. A delta commissioner leads a program to help us be ready for the future and plan our cities accordingly.

Programma Maaswerken, Netherlands

In South Limburg near Borgharen, Netherlands, the floodplains have been widened for greater safety at high water.

© J. VAN HOUDT/RIJKSWATERSTAAT

Henk Ovink

Special Envoy for International Water Affairs, Kingdom of the Netherlands

Doetinchem, Netherlands

Henk Ovink was appointed as the first Special Envoy for International Water Affairs in 2015. He is responsible for advocating water awareness around the world, focusing on building institutional capacity and coalitions to address the world’s pressing water needs. He is principal for Rebuild by Design, a resilience innovation competition developed for President Obama’s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force. In February 2020, he was awarded the IHS Urban Professional Award for his contribution to the field of resilient cities.

New York City

After Hurricane Sandy revealed alarming infrastructural, environmental, and social vulnerabilities, Rebuild by Design assembled teams of architects, engineers, planners, and environmental scientists to undertake a research-intensive design process to identify environmental concerns and develop strategies for the region and its communities.

This is also the culture that brings me to the world, where I go to places to build awareness, help build capacity in the context of disasters, and, of course, drive innovations. This is where we offer to finance with coalitions, financial partners, and government-to-government partnerships. Driving leadership of the world to address water as an opportunity and building a global coalition on adaptation to drive climate action forward in the multilateral space. We have to scale up and replicate these projects.

I’m doing this in Asia with the Water as Leverage program, which is designed to overcome climate-related challenges. Focusing on three cities in Asia: Chennai, India; Kuma, Bangladesh; and Samara, Indonesia, we look at water-related challenges, why they build up and where these challenges come together. We also deliver aspirational and inspirational catalytic projects that connect all these needs and interests.

In Chennai, we moved the city from a scarcity system (where water was abundant, but it leaked out of this urban system, polluting, using a massive amount of energy, and increasing our carbon footprint) to a closedlooped system where we have nature-based solutions, investing in historic infrastructure, creating new infrastructure based on culture, investing in forestry and wetlands, bioswales, rivers, and canals, and also mixing solid and liquid waste for revenue streams and adapting our infrastructure, housing, and buildings.

These projects mitigate the risk of climate change and adapt for a better future. They take many boxes of the SDGs and set an agenda we can replicate across the world. In all three cities, we work the same: building the capacity we need for fixing infrastructure and building an enabling environment to address the needs on the ground.

We have to step up, scale up, and replicate these efforts. We have to put our money where our hearts and minds are. We have to look at water as an enabler for sustainable development and as a leverage for making a difference. We have to change course now. Not for me but for future generations.