Danube Watch 2/2017 - Summer School, Water in the sustainable development – current challenges and opportunities
Summer School
Water in the sustainable development – current challenges and opportunities
Summer School Water in the sustainable development – current challenges and opportunities took place between 9-16th July 2017 at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences in Poland.
Alongside the GWP’s strategic goals for catalysing change and strengthening partnerships, sharing knowledge and developing capacity to share knowledge are also equally important. The GWP CEE recognises the need for a better understanding of multi-disciplinary aspects of water governance – such as legal issues, a participatory approach, and conflict resolution techniques – and has designed this summer school to enhance the skills of students currently enrolled in different water related MSc and PhD programmes from universities throughout Europe. The Summer School was attended by 23 MSc and PhD students from Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Albania, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, and Mongolia with a background ranging from natural sciences, geography and engineering, to landscape ecology and law.
Water management education nowadays needs a better understanding of the multi-disciplinary aspects of water governance. The Summer School is therefore a great opportunity for MSc and PhD students to learn more about the current topics in the water sector: Integrated Water Resources Management, Nexus, Green Economy, Integrated Urban Water Management, and Water Security and Climate Resilience.
The Summer School focused on the following themes:
- Integrated water Resource Management (IWRM) – water governance (law, policy), water and environmental economics, IWRM and sectoral planning, including concrete case studies on the application of IWRM tools (economic tools, stakeholder involvement, institutional roles, and water legislation reforms)
- innovations – technical and non-technical solutions in both urban and rural settings
- climate change – policy responses, floods and drought adaptation, with the focus on Central and Eastern Europe
- social aspects – the importance of communication, public participation and stakeholder involvement
- youth involvement in the water sector and inclusion in decision-making processes.
A mixture of academic professors, practitioners and representatives from world organisations proved to be an excellent combination for providing the participants with both theoretical and practical knowledge and enhancing the skills of this new generation of water managers.
The summer school also provided an open platform for participants from different universities to share experiences and exchange cooperation ideas related to their different fields of water studies. The IWRM concept, innovative water solutions and climate resilience were among the most discussed issues, along with youth participation and inclusion in decision-making processes. Exploring these current challenges from global, regional and local perspectives brought additional value to the experience, thereby enhancing the skills of these future decision-makers.
This year’s summer school was organised by the Global Water Partnership Central and Eastern Europe (GWP CEE) in cooperation with the Global Water Partnership – Mediterranean (GWP-MED).
The school was supported by the UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme and Youth for Water and Climate initiative, under the patronage of the UNESCO Chairs on Sustainable Development and Ecological Awareness and the Sustainable Development Management and Education in the Mediterranean established by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. The Technical University in Zvolen, Slovakia also played an active supporting role.
