GIWEH’s Flagship Project is an umbrella project enhancing water sustainability by offering both a management tool (proper guidelines and a platform for research, knowledge exchange, and capacity building) as well as a framework for monitoring. While UN-Water’s work focuses at the global scale, our Flagship Project fills the gaps to address regional and local conditions. The Flagship Project was developed from GIWEH’s vision for the future.
Vision for the Future: the Beginning
Before the SDGs were announced, GIWEH created its vision for the future, as depicted in the “Post-2015 Monitoring Framework” (to view, click on the small photo above). The vision denoted important aspects within three categories: economic and social components, physical components, and other considerations.
After the SDGs were solidified and adopted, GIWEH reflected upon its 2030 vision and made slight modifications to improve the flagship project. The vision was adapted to embody Water Sustainability, and was divided into two main subheadings: Water Resources Management and Water Governance. Under each subheading, the specific aspects of the vision are identified (see main diagram above).
Why adopt this 2030 vision?
• To move from the Global Agenda to Regional and National Agendas
• To target the most vulnerable areas, in terms of socio-political and economic sensitivity and disaster risks—especially flash floods, droughts, and humanitarian crises
• To build water stewardship through the integration of the private sector and civil society in the monitoring process, in order to promote and support the SDG 6.a and 6.b
• To train the local staff to adopt the different protocols of monitoring
• To present good practices for good water governance
The project is developed on three levels (research, capacity building, and monitoring) to be used as a tool in the elaboration of local water databases and information beyond the data to support the water policy and strategy with more focus on citizens, civil society, and academia.
The three levels—capacity building, research, and a monitoring framework—involve:
• Wide water networking
• Extensive capacity building and training
• Cooperation with various key water actors in academia and civil society
• Research and data exchange
During this project, GIWEH will:
• Encourage academics, civil society, and other community leaders to play a leading role in monitoring the development process, and support public-private partnerships to create economic and social prosperity
• Support data visualization and interactive discussions with different actors
GIWEH’s 2030 vision will be part of the Water Industry’s Overseas Future Plan; developed during the 7th World Water Forum in Korea, this plan supports science and technology in water management. Currently, water scarcity affects more than 40 percent of the people in the world, a proportion set to reach over 66 percent by 2050. Sustainable management cannot be achieved without a comprehensive approach, which relies on high quality data and information. Thus, this Monitoring Program will be a good tool to support and enhance decision-making at every scale.
GIWEH is building partnerships with different key organizations for the successful execution of this project. GIWEH will also develop a GIS system to analyze and present the data on Goal 6 and open online dialogue and feedback. To achieve this goal, GIWEH promotes and facilitates collaborative interagency efforts, information exchange, and key stakeholders’ guidance in the water sector. Ultimately, the use of GIS tools will aid in the development and implementation of strategic plans. The development in Geomatics (remote sensing and GIS) will enable users of the 2030 Water Monitoring Framework to consider the available information and their spatial distribution at different levels. The new Geomatics-based water monitoring (water resources management and water governance) will be developed by areas of interest and focus on different zones. GIWEH’s Flagship Project was introduced in Korea at the 7th World Water Forum, the Asia Water Council, and at the 2015 Stockholm Water Week.