Interview with Josefina Maestu on the Water for Life UN-Water Best Practices Award
WfWP has been very involved in the Water for Life Decade from the United Nations and is very excited that the decade will be concluded with the 'Water for Life' UN-Water Best Practices Award in March 2015. Deadline to apply for the award is the 15th of September.
Josefina Maestu, coordinator of the United Nations Officeto Support the International Decade for Action 'Water for Life' 2005-2015 shares her thoughts on the award.
What are your expectations/hopes of the award?
The Water for Life UN-Water Best-Practices Award has been going on for the last 5 years. The Award winners have been consistently stories of effort and commitment, often under difficult circumstances. One specific characteristic of the Award that I would like to highlight is that they are not given to specific individuals but to projects and, in this sense as an Award to team efforts, tocollective efforts. This is one of the characteristics that make them special.
Award winners consistently report on what the Award has meant for them. The most important impact has been that it has provided them recognition in their own countries and local context and hence impulse to continue, facilitating their action and progress with the projects.
My expectation and hopes for the Award is that it will continue focusing on collective efforts, so we can all learn by exampleon how actually many are transforming their water and sanitation situation, showing that is possible, that we can do it. The members of the Technical Advisory Committee and the Jury – varying each year with the theme- have consistently been open and engaged and the Award Secretariat has remained committed to making the process fair and transparent. All these are key ingredients to the UN-Water Award that need to be sustained in the future to insure the Award is meaningful.
What do you consider as the main arguments to promote the role of women in the water sector?
We may think that women’s needs – related to their role in many traditional and non traditional societies- as mothers, in charge often of family welfare (food, health, education) and of family farms and other home socio-economic activities, may be better considered if there are professional women and women leaders making decisions. There would be less biased decisions and implementation would consider women needs.
Beyond this, we need to consider how water and sanitation projects and actions can and have served women to occupy and take an ever increasing role in their localities and in societies – linked to their traditional role as they contribute to insuring greater decency, effectiveness and sustainability of projects and in water resources management and implementation, and through this increasing their consideration and role in society, becoming agents of change.
Do you have a personal connection to the awards categories 'best water management practices' and 'best participatory, communication, awareness-raising and education practices'?
Both themes have been important in my past and present professional experience. I have worked for more than 20 years as a water economist trying to improve water and sanitation decision making and management. I have done so by providing information and analysis that allow considering the economic implications of water decisions, both from the perspective of water users and from the perspective of water managers. For example analysing the economic benefits for users derived from water and sanitation decisions/projects and the financial implications and opportunities for water managers building water and sanitation infrastructures and preparing river basin management plans.
In the past five years my work has taken me to communications, awareness raising and outreach activities. So the second theme is also very close to my professional experience. My interest on social instruments in water management, however, dates back to the 80’s when I started to work in issues related to organisational learning and continued working on participatory approaches in water management.
Approaching the closure of the Water for Life Decade, what are you most proud of that has been achieved the last 10 years?
The past decade has been with no doubt good news for water and sanitation. How can one not be proud of the significant progress that has been made in the last ten years in providing people with access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation? Since 1990 well over 2.3 billion people have gained access to an improved source of drinking water and 116 countries have met the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target for water. More than half of the world’s population, almost 4 million people, now enjoy the highest level of water access: a piped water connection in their homes. The MDG drinking water target coverage of 88% was met in 2010, 5 years ahead of schedule despite significant global population growth. Almost 2 billion people have gained access to improved sanitation and 77 countries have met the MDG target. Between 1990 and 2012, open defecation decreased from 24 per cent to 14 per cent globally.
This would not have been possible if global attention and countries attention to water and sanitation had not increased. The relevance of the main themes of the Water for Life Decade, water cooperation and the engagement of women in water and sanitation issues, are and had been increasingly coming to light as key factors of success.
In your vision what issue(s) should definitely be on the post development/water decade agenda?
The post-2015 agenda for water is really comprehensive. It includes a proposal on a Sustainable Development Goal for water and sanitation and targets for WASH, for water resources management, for water quality and for risk management. Most targets are really specific and allow monitoring and follow up of commitments – as intended. Many in the international community are getting ready to align their work programmes and their actions with these new targets – although we should not forget that the negotiations from September 2014 to September 2015 may mean changes. An important issue that should definitely be in the post-2015 agenda is a more clear focus (and perhaps targets) on the means of implementation for each specific Goal.
WfWP has been very involved in the Water for Life Decade from the United Nations and is very excited that the decade will be concluded with the 'Water for Life' UN-Water Best Practices Award in March 2015. Deadline to apply for the award is the 15th of September.
Josefina Maestu, coordinator of the United Nations Officeto Support the International Decade for Action 'Water for Life' 2005-2015 shares her thoughts on the award.
What are your expectations/hopes of the award?
The Water for Life UN-Water Best-Practices Award has been going on for the last 5 years. The Award winners have been consistently stories of effort and commitment, often under difficult circumstances. One specific characteristic of the Award that I would like to highlight is that they are not given to specific individuals but to projects and, in this sense as an Award to team efforts, tocollective efforts. This is one of the characteristics that make them special.
Award winners consistently report on what the Award has meant for them. The most important impact has been that it has provided them recognition in their own countries and local context and hence impulse to continue, facilitating their action and progress with the projects.
My expectation and hopes for the Award is that it will continue focusing on collective efforts, so we can all learn by exampleon how actually many are transforming their water and sanitation situation, showing that is possible, that we can do it. The members of the Technical Advisory Committee and the Jury – varying each year with the theme- have consistently been open and engaged and the Award Secretariat has remained committed to making the process fair and transparent. All these are key ingredients to the UN-Water Award that need to be sustained in the future to insure the Award is meaningful.
What do you consider as the main arguments to promote the role of women in the water sector?
We may think that women’s needs – related to their role in many traditional and non traditional societies- as mothers, in charge often of family welfare (food, health, education) and of family farms and other home socio-economic activities, may be better considered if there are professional women and women leaders making decisions. There would be less biased decisions and implementation would consider women needs.
Beyond this, we need to consider how water and sanitation projects and actions can and have served women to occupy and take an ever increasing role in their localities and in societies – linked to their traditional role as they contribute to insuring greater decency, effectiveness and sustainability of projects and in water resources management and implementation, and through this increasing their consideration and role in society, becoming agents of change.
Do you have a personal connection to the awards categories 'best water management practices' and 'best participatory, communication, awareness-raising and education practices'?
Both themes have been important in my past and present professional experience. I have worked for more than 20 years as a water economist trying to improve water and sanitation decision making and management. I have done so by providing information and analysis that allow considering the economic implications of water decisions, both from the perspective of water users and from the perspective of water managers. For example analysing the economic benefits for users derived from water and sanitation decisions/projects and the financial implications and opportunities for water managers building water and sanitation infrastructures and preparing river basin management plans.
In the past five years my work has taken me to communications, awareness raising and outreach activities. So the second theme is also very close to my professional experience. My interest on social instruments in water management, however, dates back to the 80’s when I started to work in issues related to organisational learning and continued working on participatory approaches in water management.
Approaching the closure of the Water for Life Decade, what are you most proud of that has been achieved the last 10 years?
The past decade has been with no doubt good news for water and sanitation. How can one not be proud of the significant progress that has been made in the last ten years in providing people with access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation? Since 1990 well over 2.3 billion people have gained access to an improved source of drinking water and 116 countries have met the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target for water. More than half of the world’s population, almost 4 million people, now enjoy the highest level of water access: a piped water connection in their homes. The MDG drinking water target coverage of 88% was met in 2010, 5 years ahead of schedule despite significant global population growth. Almost 2 billion people have gained access to improved sanitation and 77 countries have met the MDG target. Between 1990 and 2012, open defecation decreased from 24 per cent to 14 per cent globally.
This would not have been possible if global attention and countries attention to water and sanitation had not increased. The relevance of the main themes of the Water for Life Decade, water cooperation and the engagement of women in water and sanitation issues, are and had been increasingly coming to light as key factors of success.
In your vision what issue(s) should definitely be on the post development/water decade agenda?
The post-2015 agenda for water is really comprehensive. It includes a proposal on a Sustainable Development Goal for water and sanitation and targets for WASH, for water resources management, for water quality and for risk management. Most targets are really specific and allow monitoring and follow up of commitments – as intended. Many in the international community are getting ready to align their work programmes and their actions with these new targets – although we should not forget that the negotiations from September 2014 to September 2015 may mean changes. An important issue that should definitely be in the post-2015 agenda is a more clear focus (and perhaps targets) on the means of implementation for each specific Goal.
