Teun Bastemeijer
Water Integrity

"In the last 10 years there has been continuous population increases, continuous land degradation in many places in the world. The change for the better is not necessarily in behavior; for example there’s been no change in conception rates, there are still cultures where there is one man and many women [in a marriage], and scarcity of resources (real or perceived) often creates a rush towards grabbing the remaining land and water resources. This results in a combination of high rates of population growth in combination with extreme poverty and lack of land and water resources. So we have recurrent humanitarian crisis situations in many places. These are frequently combined with violent conflicts and failure of governance which make things worse. What has changed for the better is the start of more long term thinking. The discussion around the post-2015 agenda has been of higher quality than I would have expected. That gives some hope for partnerships and a more honest approach with regards to what needs to be done. There is a far more open attitude towards discussion about sensitive issues such as integrity and good water governance at least in international platforms. For example, OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) has put corruption on its agenda, as have others. UN also to some extent, but not so much in UN-Water even though some members are active in this area. But even though there is resistance to include the issue in the indicators for monitoring of progress towards Sustainable Development Goals, generally speaking there are a growing number of political leaders and international policy makers who are starting to ponder or wonder what can be done in enhancing integrity in water as a key condition for sustainability of achievements. More action in this area could be a way to diminish the gap between policy intentions and reality, so that is positive.

My hopes for the future? I wouldn’t say more grandchildren. I have already four. My hope is that some of these things that seem impossible to resolve over the coming years will start being resolved and I hope we (both human kind and its global environment) are not down the drain before 2050 so we have time to implement the remedies and correct the course of events through policies and collective actions that go well beyond the water sector."