Global collaboration to drive resilience policy adoption

Guest blogger Dr. Fred Boltz shares the global water and development community’s joint position statement to the UN – a positive step towards driving global policy adoption of resilience across the water agenda as a vehicle for achieving the 2030 Agenda.

I’m very pleased to share a terrific outcome from our multi-stakeholder dialogue. Our joint position statement to the UN – “˜Building a resilient future through water‘ – advances resilience as a key tenet of water management and fulfillment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is an open letter to the High-level Political Forum for Sustainable Development from multi-stakeholder representatives of the water and development community.

I’m particularly pleased with the great response of this distinguished and diverse community of public, private, academic and civil society leaders representing organizations from every corner of the world. For instance, the Global Water Partnership (GWP) represents more than 3,000 organizations in 183 countries, and the International Water Association (IWA) more than 10,000 water professionals.

I’m honored to represent The Resilience Shift as a signatory and co-lead of this effort with our partner the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI).

Thanks for your great support!

Building Resilience through Water

In a Resilience Shift partnership with the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Dr. Fred Boltz leads the Resilience Shift initiative – “˜Building Resilience through Water’. One core objective of this project is to drive global policy adoption of resilience as a vehicle for achieving the 2030 Agenda, anchoring on the water agenda and its connectivity across critical infrastructure and the SDGs.

This is a great first step for us towards that goal. The signatories on this letter represent the entire spectrum of the global water and development community – multilateral organisations, civil society, the private sector and academia – united in the position that resilience offers us a means of progressing the SDGs and the wider 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.

This multi-stakeholder position, along with pledges to joint action and investment to build resilience, will be presented as part of the UN High Level Political Forum in July when the UN will take stock of progress on SDG6, and build partnerships and mobilize resources to take more resolute action.

Dr. Boltz is Adjunct Professor in the Hydrosystems Group at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Prior to this, he served as Managing Director at the Rockefeller Foundation, directing the Environment Program from 2013-2017.

Signatories are listed below:

Torgny Holmgren, Executive Director | Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI)

Fred Boltz, CEO | Resolute Development Solutions | The Resilience Shift

Torkil Jonch Clausen, Chair | Action Platform for Source-to-Sea Management

Stefan Uhlenbrook, Coordinator and Director World Water Assessment Programme | UNESCO

Blanca Jimenez Cisneros, Director of the Division of Water Sciences | UNESCO

Jennifer Sara, Director, Water Global Practice | The World Bank Group

Oyun Sanjaasuren, Chair | Global Water Partnership

Betsy Otto, Global Director, Water Program | World Resources Institute (WRI)

Ben Braga, President | World Water Council

Johan Rockström, Director | Stockholm Resilience Centre

Mark Fletcher, Director, Global Water Business Leader| Arup

Cate Lamb, Head of Water Security | CDP

Casey Brown, Professor | University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Mariet Verhoef-Cohen, President Women for Water | Women for Water Partnership (WfWP)

Beverly Bucur, Director of Advocacy |Soroptimist International

John Matthews, Coordinator | Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA)

Claudia Sadoff, Director General | International Water Management Institute (IWMI)

Kala Vairavamoorthy, Director | International Water Association (IWA)

Alex Mung, Head of Global Water Initiative | World Economic Forum (WEF)

For more information please contact:

Maggie White, Manager, International Policy and AGWA Co-Chair: maggie.white@siwi.org

Read more:  policy, SDGs, water