7th International Symposium on Knowledge and Capacity for the Water Sector: Empowering a New Generation

Over the past decades, the water sector has been subject to significant shifts. Water and sanitation systems are increasingly recognized as being complex, dynamic and inherently political, requiring a multi-scalar perspective, involving a multitude of actors and interests and demanding interdisciplinary solutions. In addition, climate change will continue to have an increasing impact on the water and sanitation sector over the coming years. Developments such as artificial intelligence and digitalization will have a substantial impact on the water and sanitation sector, as well. These challenges and developments require new competencies and capacities for water and sanitation professionals. Empowering and engaging a new generation of water sector professionals and scientists to manage the challenges and developments of a rapidly changing water sector has become imperative.

The way in which knowledge and capacity strengthening in the water sector is understood and practiced has changed in last 20 years and it continues to change. It is no longer so self-evident that technologies, institutions and governance models developed in Northern countries are suitable for countries in the rest of the world. This is both, because some of them are intrinsically unsustainable, but also because socio-ecological realities in Southern countries generate distinct trajectories of water development that call for their own approaches and solutions. The implication is that a serious re-consideration of the contents and direction of capacity strengthening efforts is needed.

Approaches to, perspectives on and initiatives in capacity strengthening emanating from the Global South are becoming increasingly prominent in the water sector. Knowledge and capacity strengthening through south-south partnerships should be mobilized to stimulate development and strengthen skills, abilities, processes and resources of communities and organizations to be able to adapt and thrive.

• promote collaborative sharing on knowledge and capacity strengthening in the water sector between an international community of practitioners, academics and policy-makers;
• analyse trends of knowledge and capacity strengthening occurring in the water sector and estimate how the trends will (and should) develop in the future;
• explore capacity challenges and identify possible sustainable solutions to these challenges; and
• identify opportunities for inter-generational learning and empowering a new generation for a new era of water-related knowledge and capacity strengthening.
• formulate and advance an agenda for knowledge and capacity development in the water sector for the coming years.