- Investment in green cities that largely depend on water services necessitates a dynamic and multi-track process, driven by water diplomacy.
- This entails embodying the broad sector of stakeholders sharing water resources to discuss and identify solutions for sustainable management of shared resources.
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As the curtains of the second session of the United Nations Habitat Assembly close, there is an urgency to create a strategic autonomy between Sustainable Development Goal no. 11.3.
The goal envisions enhancing inclusive and sustainable urbanization and capacity for participatory, integrated and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries.
Sustainable Development Goal no. 6.3 envisions improved water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping, minimizing the release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally.
Investment in green cities that largely depend on water services necessitates a dynamic and multi-track process, driven by water diplomacy.
This entails embodying the broad sector of stakeholders sharing water resources to discuss and identify solutions for sustainable management of shared resources.
Inclusive participation is instrumental for effective water diplomacy that embodies smart cities.
This calls for the engagement of not only formal state actors with the mandate to make decisions on behalf of their governments or institutions but also complementing official processes with informal relationships establishing multidimensional partnerships.
Moreover, multi-track water diplomacy processes are also able to better capture user priorities, enhance and maintain buy-in and support policies, provide early warning for risk identification and improve water access for marginalised groups such as women and persons with disabilities.
Additionally, water diplomacy’s multi-track approach is multi-disciplinary, which is critical to facing growing uncertainties with evidence-based responses.
Member states, therefore, have to invest in research, development and design.
The availability of cross-national data on water services will enable evidence-based decision-making that informs jurisdictional policy intervention on urban planning on one hand.
On the other hand, one challenge that remains is how to transfer and communicate knowledge from technical tracks to official-level political dialogues.
Climate governance processes, from ongoing transboundary water negotiations, indicate that technical knowledge is more likely to be captured horizontally across relevant line ministries and vertically from state to community-based actors.
Furthermore, water diplomacy processes are enhanced by ensuring negotiation teams are reflective of the diverse societies they represent.
To have intersectional participation from a gender perspective, investment and effort are needed as evidence reveals a persistent gender gap in the water sector, particularly at the transboundary level, which continues to be dominated by men.
This creates opportunities for women to actively participate in the water sector and be part of the negotiations and inject new ideas within the sector.
To achieve sustainable and effective transboundary water management, that supports the increasing demand for sustainable cities, requires an all-hands-on-deck approach.
Success requires a proactive effort to create inclusive and strong engagement, both top-down and bottom-up, and involve the whole of society in our shared water agenda.
By leveraging more actors and communities into inclusive water diplomacy processes, we are able to foster a cadre of water champions, mitigate human security implications and improve inter-state relations between countries sharing a freshwater resource.
Moreover, emphasis is also needed to leverage the leadership and engagement of youth, women and persons with disabilities in water diplomacy processes.
This is to provide them with the platform to inject innovation and locally led solutions that can be incorporated to crated the synergy between water services and green cities.
The multi-dimensional approach requires pro-active efforts to create inclusive and strong engagement, both top-down and bottom-up, and involve the whole of society in the shared water agenda.
By leveraging more actors and communities into inclusive water diplomacy processes, nationals will be able to foster a cadre of water champions, mitigate human security implications and improve inter-state relations between countries sharing the water resource equitably whereas investing in sustainable green cities.
Nancy Marangu is, Communication and Public Policy Analyst