Collaboration for Action: Hopeful Voices at the UN 2023 Water Conference

By Elizabeth Gilbert

Elizabeth Gilbert at the UN Water Conference

The problem of water is uniquely multi-faceted. Few resources are so simultaneously necessary for life, equally harmful in volumes that are both too large and too small, and conditional on engineered, political, social, and natural forces. Two years ago, I left my position as an environmental engineer to pursue a Master of Science at Tufts University, in a joint degree between the Urban Environmental Policy & Planning program and Environmental Engineering because I realized that we could not simply engineer our way out of many of the most complex environmental problems facing our communities. The problems require effective communication and collaboration between the many relevant disciplines and stakeholders. In March, the United Nations brought this challenge to the world stage during the UN Water Conference in New York City. I attended the conference with the goal of better understanding my role in collaborative solutions for these many wicked problems. Appropriately, collaboration was a theme that arose consistently throughout the conference. We heard the World Bank refer to the interwoven and overlapping system that is regulatory water management as a bowl of spaghetti—and then listened as they explained how many levels of regulatory agencies would have to work together to untangle the system to restructure it into something productive and successful. The World Wildlife Fund outlined its support for collaborative models that finance water and allow ongoing growth. Bayer and Reckitt corporations both summarized their efforts to support local NGOs and communities, with the goal of building healthy environments around their production centers and in tandem with the use of their products. The Agência Nacional de Águas e Saneamento Básico (ANA) of Brazil reviewed their efforts to make environmental data widely available to maximize its use and equity. These instances of united support for the mission were motivating and relieving. I like to believe that this collaborative mindset shows that stakeholders and officials are truly interested in finding the best solutions for our water problems.

Of course, we saw why ‘collaboration’ is not, and cannot, be the sole panacea for our environmental problems as well. A few speakers identified instances where they felt collaboration was, at best, ineffective, and at worst, destructive, for solving certain water-related problems. Advocates from Turkey stressed that third-party engagement in negotiations for the management of resources in the Tigris-Euphrates basin complicated the resolution because outside parties did not understand the political and social conditions of the countries. Grassroots organizations asked larger NGOs how they could be involved with their collaborative initiatives and received no actionable answer. We saw many instances of corporations and governments highlighting the ways they could catalyze improvement for their constituents, clients, and neighbors without first turning internally and minimizing their own impact. Procter and Gamble is one such example; they were understandably proud of their external partnerships intended to mitigate water problems around the globe, but when asked about the water impact of their own products, their commitments were vague and filled with caveats and buzzwords. Fostering external collaboration seems to be an easy way to avoid taking responsibility for or to deflect focus from the impacts of the governments’ and corporations’ own operation.  

Retrospectively, I believe these instances of apparently contradictory evidence of the efficacy of intersectoral and intergovernmental collaboration are, in fact, two sides of the same coin. The conference served to remind us that there are thousands of governments, NGOs, corporations, scientists, and concerned citizens who stand behind the need for water action and are eager to collaborate in the name of progress. As we improve global equitable and sustainable water management, it is imperative that we continue to challenge cooperating parties to drive effective collaboration for actionable interventions without defaulting to collaboration for its own sake. I look forward to discerning my own role in this ongoing process and hope that the momentum generated by the conference continues to accumulate and drive meaningful change.

 Ellizabeth Gilbert is a joint M.S. in Urban Environmental Policy and Environmental Engineering at Tufts University.