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Shining a Light on Cooperation

at the 9th GEF Biennial International Waters Conference (GEF UNDP/UNEP IW:LEARN)

By IW:LEARN

December 11^th, 2018

Facilitating Cross-Sectoral, Cross-Regional and Project-to-Project Learning and Experience Sharing for Global Environment Facility International Waters Projects and Stakeholders.

9th GEF Biennial International Waters Conference: Prelude

Every two years, the GEF IW portfolio comes together to plan interventions, deliberate on issues, share information and innovation, and build capacity in key management and technical areas within the GEF focal area to protect and manage the world’s freshwater, groundwater, large marine ecosystems and open oceans. This signature portfolio event, the GEF Biennial International Waters Conference (IWC), was recently held for the ninth time, November 5-8, 2018 in Marrakesh, Morocco.

The IWC9 enjoyed the Patronage of His Majesty, King Mohamed VI of Morocco. Her Excellency, Dr. Nezha El Ouafi, Secretary of State for the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Sustainable Development opened the Conference and provided her insights on Morocco’s great experience in water management. Madam Secretary of State welcomed participants to the city of Marrakesh and expressed how the IWC was an opportunity to emphasize the commitment Morocco has made at international and national levels with regard to the implementation of the COP21 and Sustainable Development Goals Agendas.

Through their interactive (and often participant-led) session methods and tailored-learning structure, the IWCs aim to offer an experience for participants that is unlike the mainstream water management conference:

“Has anybody opened their [conference] programme book? Do you know what is in the middle? There is a results framework. How many people go to conferences or learning events where there is a results framework? … And with the IW:LEARN team setting its intention, they are quite immediately strengthening their own ability to help you retain what you are doing here."

- Monika Weber-Fahr, Executive Secretary and CEO, Global Water Partnership

And they are designed to foster relationships and build new ones:

"It Is fantastic to see so many IW stakeholders here. It’s a real family gathering— but it is not only family, because every time we (hold this event) we have new people coming, new agencies and partners; and that is absolutely great!”

- Vladimir Mamaev, Regional Technical Advisor, UN Development Programme

"In our daily jobs, it can be hard to focus on advancing knowledge as we have to face tight deadlines; but that is where the IWC comes in, it is an opportunity to talk, to share and build these personal and professional ties that will last way longer after the Conference."

- Chris Severin, Coordinator of the GEF's International Waters focal area.

Monika Weber-Fahr, Executive Secretary and CEO, Global Water Partnership

Ms. Kusum Athukorala, Sri Lanka Water Partnership

IWC9 gathered more than 330 participants from 92 countries and 31 GEF IW projects

The GEF attends to a unique demand in the global water agenda: fostering transboundary cooperation and building trust between and among states that often find themselves locked in complex and long-lasting marine resource and/or freshwater-use conflicts. Through the IW focal area, the GEF helps countries jointly manage their transboundary surface water basins, groundwater basins, and coastal and marine systems. Working collectively, countries can better use and share benefits from these water systems, and implement the policy, legal and institutional reforms and investments needed for sustainable use and maintenance of ecosystem services.

In this context, IWC9, which gathered more than 330 participants from 92 countries and 31 GEF IW projects, was organized under the theme Sustaining International Waters Cooperation, with discussion tracks devoted to building traction of the GEF’s foundational methodology, the Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis (TDA)-Strategic Action Programme (SAP) process, toward 2030 and beyond; to utilizing new practices and tools for more informed decisions and better management of systems; and to incorporating transformational solutions for ensuring long-term sustainability of both ongoing and new interventions.

The first pillar of the conference focused on facilitating the sharing of portfolio experiences on best practice and lessons learned in the preparation, adoption and implementation of TDAs and SAPs in both shared marine and freshwater bodies, and to discuss and compare this with country and other stakeholder views on traction and impacts within country, regional and global agendas. Participants confirmed the TDA-SAP process is very valuable in creating trust, leveling the capacity playing field, and finding common understanding among countries of their assets, resources pressures, and opportunities where cooperation could bring gains. Among specific examples of the foundational methodology in action, was the Benguela Current LME, leading to the world’s first LME Commission; Lake Tanganyika, sparking the creation of the Lake Tanganyika Authority through a treaty among countries; and the Orange-Senqu Basin, where the TDA process fostered trust and cooperation, and GEF support enabled countries to meet regularly, leading to consideration of potential source to sea linkages and the creation of a Ramsar site at the mouth of the river.

"The TDA-SAP process is a flexible approach, yet it gives a structure. It allows the overlap of national constraints and objectives on the first hand and regional opportunities and challenges on the other hand. The process allows identifying common assets and objectives for cooperation."

- Astrid Hillers, GEF Secretariat

Through freshwater and marine world cafés, participants exchanged their views, experiences and national perspectives on how to make SAPs more operational. Discussions Recurring points across the cafes included the importance of a fair, transparent and inclusive process that involves a wide range of stakeholders at all levels from the beginning; the challenge of building trust among stakeholders; the need to address stakeholders with improved information and data collection and sharing processes, and in particular, to document the benefits of cooperation for the entire region of the water body; building capacity at the local and technical levels to influence political leadership and long-term vision, as well as the usefulness of pilot projects to serve as examples and demonstrate possibilities, combining strong science and data to support evidence-based decision-making; and the importance of ensuring high-level representation from different sectors to galvanize backing from all relevant ministries to support priority actions from the SAPs as a key to unlock budget provision at national levels.

“A highlight for me were the interactive formats, where all colleagues could contribute with their knowledge and experiences. We have benefited by gaining a better understanding of the strategic intent of the GEF, raising our awareness of best practice/case studies across the portfolio, and recognizing the strengths and weaknesses in our projects.”

- IWC9 Participant (Evaluation Survey)

Pillar two was closely tied to pillar one, as it was designed to socialize a new world of disruptive technologies that both enable and require us to think differently about our work on transboundary waters; and to enhance knowledge and understanding of new and existing tools and practices to help increase the impact and sustainability of GEF IW investments.

Disruptive technologies can be grouped in many different ways, including helping us rethink decisions (how we gather, analyze and visualize information), rethink production (how we create, assemble and supply products) and rethink interaction (how we connect and work together). The real power of disruption comes in the way these technologies can be combined and deployed to solve development challenges. Participants were exposed to examples from around the world to illustrate these emerging approaches and to help us discuss how we can better reflect these approaches in ongoing and future programs.

“Innovation is fundamental to achieving transformational change [within the international waters context]”

- Blake Ratner, Panel Member, GEF Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel

In the tools and approaches clinic carousel, “doctors” led “patient”-focused sessions on their topic of expertise in a campfire-style format. The 16 individual clinic topics and “how to/how do I?” questions were framed through a demand-driven approach across the IW portfolio, and provided a chance for practitioners/country representatives (patients) to connect with the doctors and identify tools and practices capable of solving very real challenges on the ground. To access the full reports of the clinics please visit: www.iwlearn.net/IWC9

Circular Economy, Blue Economy, Nature-based solutions

Pillar three spoke to the future of GEF IW programming, highlighting some big ideas/paradigm shifts for achieving breakthroughs in the portfolio space: circular economy, blue economy and nature-based solutions. Discussions captured ways to switch and reward investment in sustainability to break the cycle of degradation; to strengthen governance and enabling conditions; and to align these transformational solutions with the TDA-SAP process and the role the GEF partnership can play in this effort.

The circular economy breakout helped unpack the circular economy concept and demonstrate opportunities that the concept has to offer. A circular economy is about producing more with less; it is where the value of materials in products are maintained at their maximum value as long as possible by innovative designs that dematerialize and detoxify products, resource efficient production technologies, reuse, repurposing, recycling, new business models and recovery. These approaches can be embedded into existing national processes rather than developing “new” strategies per se. Governments and countries are overwhelmed by all these new concepts therefore there is a need now to streamline definitions and to move forward for achieving transformational change on the ground.

The blue economy deep dive provided responses to emerging ocean issues through ecosystem and area-based management tools and sustainable blue economy initiatives, including transboundary and LME approaches for the sustainable use of marine resources with a view to achieve a healthy and a productive ocean. A key takeaway question is how can the GEF IW portfolio take advantage of blue economy opportunities, especially given our experience of working with financial institutions on the topic, working on strategies at country and regional levels, and implementing blue growth interventions at national and local scales?

The nature-based solutions (NBS) session highlighted the important role that natural ecosystems, and ecosystem-based management, can and must play in meeting goals for water security, climate resilience and economic development in both inland and coastal zones. NBS have made major technical progress and are more feasible than ever; but technical challenges do remain, and NBS upscaling is hindered by policy environments and financing mechanisms that favor more conventional gray infrastructure. Discussions focused on these challenges and barriers that must be overcome as we seek to make NBS “boring”, accepted and implemented as mainstream solutions inside and outside the GEF IW portfolio.

Outside of the main learning tracks, IWC9 had much more to offer.

A tradition of the IWCs is the Innovation Marketplace—the exhibit opportunity where GEF IW projects and stakeholders and local water management representatives can display their results, unique approaches and catalytic outcomes, with emphasis on how these may be replicated and how they can be used to sustain international waters cooperation. Participants were able to view these exhibits and network during the conference breaks. To access the electronic versions of the posters, please visit: www.iwlearn.net/IWC9

Technical site visits are an integral part of the typical IWC agenda, providing a showcase of GEF project and/or host country water management good practices as well as local cultural tradition. In Marrakech, the technical site visits, captured as “Past, Present and Future of Water Management in Morocco,” highlighted a range of water management challenges faced by the country, and traditional and new approaches to combat these challenges. Participants visited the state-of-the-art Museum Mohammed VI for the Water Civilization in Morocco; a GEF Small Grants Programme pottery project, and Jardins Secret within the city’s medina, to learn about the “water paths”, which highlight the way water coming from the Atlas Mountains has been traditionally distributed within the medina; and heard presentations on harvesting fog from water in a small village of the country and on virtual reality training for wastewater management in the Maghreb region.

GEF IW project managers are encouraged to engage private sector organizations (companies, non-governmental organizations and private foundations) as a key element of their replication, sustainability and co-finance strategies. IWC9 featured a “Shark Tank” session for the first time, asking project stakeholders to present bankable project concepts, and demonstrated the “do’s and don’ts” when communicating the value proposition/business case for business community engagement in GEF IW projects. This innovative format offered presented a wide range of projects and good ideas, as well as their potential difficulties, thanks to the sharks’ insights. It aimed to inspire participants to look at their project, and to envision and target private sector investment.

The conference featured 12 participant-led workshops, with four related to each thematic day of the conference. These workshops ranged from practical challenges to managing international waters projects, to working toward a gender protocol for the TDA-SAP process, to enhancing access and dissemination of knowledge to improve scientific cooperation. To access the full Participant-led workshops reports, visit: www.iwlearn.net/IWC9

The pecha kucha session was an engaging portfolio solutions exchange exercise, where project representatives presented their project solutions for sustaining IW cooperation. These solutions were accepted for entry based on their feasibility and ease of implementation (cost-effective; identifiable, quantifiable and manageable risks), and their breadth of application (solution is versatile and can be applied in diverse settings across countries, cultures, sectors). Seven solutions were presented, ranging from themes such as marine plastics, to wastewater management, and regional fisheries.

"It has been a magnificent week. People have been discussing, making new partnerships. We have had tremendous outcomes, 332 people attending, taking time off their daily schedules already packed with other things, to come here and learn. To learn about each other’s work and to be inspired. It has been one the best experiences this year for me, I really treasure this and look forward to the next time we meet in Uruguay." - Chris Severin, GEF Secretariat.