Catastrophic flooding around the globe, together with severe drought in Eastern Africa, kept water-related disasters very much in the public eye during 2017. The water crisis in Cape Town, South Africa, unfolding several months prior to publication of this annual report, further intensified worldwide concern about the perils of water scarcity and possible solutions.
These events offered a vivid reminder of the need for renewed efforts to curb the destructive power of water, when and where there is too much or too little. At the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), we advanced many such efforts throughout the year, including index-based flood insurance and the sustainable use of solar-powered irrigation. At the same time, we helped realize multiple opportunities to harness the productive potential of water for sustainable growth.
Amplifying the wastewater theme of this year’s World Water Day and World Water Week, we gave special emphasis to IWMI’s research on the recovery and reuse of valuable resources from waste. Our novel approach to this work is distinguished by its strong emphasis on promoting business models to generate revenues that can help cover the costs of waste treatment. Showing much potential to help build more circular economies, this approach has struck a responsive chord with open-minded municipal authorities, entrepreneurs and academics across the developing world.
Sharpening our development focus
Those and other advances reinforced the conclusion we reached late in 2016 that, for maximum relevance and impact, IWMI needs to sharpen its focus on the central water-related development challenges of our time. To this end, we adjusted the Institute’s thematic structure, clustering our research capacities around three strategic programs: (1) Building Resilience, (2) Sustainable Growth, and (3) Rural-Urban Linkages. Stories of our programs’ recent achievements, which constitute the centerpiece of this annual report, convey a powerful message: Better water management is critical for delivering on the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Water underpins most of the 17 SDGs and is the exclusive concern of SDG 6, which calls for ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
IWMI’s programs helped channel our intensive efforts this year to build new projects and partnerships, which better enable us to translate research results into development outcomes and impacts. In 2017, we undertook new initiatives aimed at informing and influencing development funding and investment – for example, through the Water Innovations Technologies project in Jordan and a new knowledge partnership agreement with the World Bank.
Reaching out to a wide audience
To share the development benefits of IWMI’s research with a wide audience, we engaged throughout the year with partners, donors and other stakeholders at numerous events. In mid-March, for example, we launched a new report on water productivity and signed the above-mentioned partnership agreement with the World Bank at its annual Water Week event in Washington, DC, USA. Another highlight was the Indus Basin Knowledge Forum, which we hosted during July in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Convened jointly by IWMI, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and the World Bank, this groundbreaking event advanced collective efforts to pull together the best knowledge for addressing water-related challenges in the riparian countries.
IWMI made a strong showing at World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden, where we launched an advanced sample of materials from the just-published book Resource Recovery from Waste: Business Models for Energy, Nutrient and Water Reuse in Low- and Middle-income Countries. Together with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), we also launched the executive summary of a book titled Water Pollution from Agriculture: A Global Review. In addition, we joined FAO and other founding members of The Global Framework on Water Scarcity in Agriculture (WASAG) to advance its agenda of support for national efforts to meet key commitments, such as the SDGs and the Paris Climate Agreement.
Major outputs, together with our researchers’ participation in World Water Week sessions, reinforced IWMI’s standing as a global leader in addressing the enormous health and environmental threats posed by inadequate handling of fecal sludge and other waste. To extend the reach of this message, we promoted news stories on related research with the international media, generating coverage by BBC, Deutsche Welle, Reuters and others.
IWMI had a significant presence at the UN Climate Change Conference, which took place in November at Bonn, Germany, and in the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF), also held in Bonn during December. The first event offered an excellent opportunity to showcase our work on solar-powered irrigation in collaboration with the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). At GLF, researchers representing the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE), which IWMI leads, highlighted efforts to improve water and land management in key river basins of Africa and Asia.
Water challenges at center stage
Growing concern about water security, and its importance for people and the environment has steadily moved this issue to center stage in the eyes of the world. The shift represents an important opportunity for those of us addressing water security on diverse fronts. As we trust is evident from the content of this annual report, the partners and investors who supported and worked with us throughout the year have placed their confidence in an institute that is rising quickly to global water challenges.
