STAFF NEWS INTERVIEW Delft-based alumni remain active in the fi eld The recent Alumni Tracer Survey indicates that 94 percent of UNESCO-IHE’s students return to their home country or region upon graduation. Others continue with a PhD study or fi nd a job somewhere else. A small percentage, however, pursues their career in Delft at UNESCO-IHE. Update Magazine interviewed three alumni who work at IHE: Maria Rusca (Italy, WM 2009), Lecturer in Management and Organization of Sanitation, Carlos Lopez (Mexico, PhD 2009), Lecturer in Sanitary/Wastewater Engineering and Masoom Hamdard (Afghanistan, EST 2010), Lecturer in Environmental Policy. Are there differences between studying at and working for UNESCO-IHE? CL: After fi nishing my PhD, I started working for a company in the Netherlands. I didn’t notice a big difference when I returned to UNESCO-IHE a year later. For example, during my PhD studies, I did a lot of work in the laboratory and always got along very well with the lab staff; coming back to UNESCO-IHE, it was very easy to continue to work with them. MR: As a student, you receive intensive guidance in the limited time you spend at UNESCO-IHE, while working here requires more autono- mous thinking and more initiative. As far as relations are concerned, I feel the same as Carlos; I already got acquainted with various staff members when I was studying here, and those relationships haven’t changed. MH: From a cultural background, I must say that compared to Afghanistan, I noticed as a student that there was less distance between students and lecturers. Now that I’m a staff member, I still have to get used to that a bit. For example, I always use titles like doctor and professor, but most colleagues insist that I call them by their fi rst name. I really appreciate that. CL: There is STAFF CHANGES APPOINTED PERSONNEL Paul Libaudière Lecturer in Business Economy - MAI Masoom Hamdard Lecturer in Environmental Policy Uta Wehn de Montalvo Senior Researcher and Programme Coordinator Hanan Nabil-Abdenbi Employee Benefi ts Offi cer Kenneth Irvine Professor of Aquatic Ecosystems Johan Reyns Lecturer Water Engineering 26 CHANGED POSITIONS Erwin Ploeger Head Education Bureau Wendy Sturrock Senior Lecturer Language and Academic Skills DEPARTING STAFF Kebreab Ghebremichael Senior Lecturer in Water Supply Yunqing Xuan Lecturer in Hydroinformatics Diederik Rousseau Senior Lecturer in Environmental Engineering Jouke Heeringa Senior Policy Advisor Ewout Heeringa Social & Cultural Offi cer Roland Price Senior Advisor in Hydroinformatics Peter Koelmans Reproduction Offi cer NEW DEPARTMENT Newly established Education Bureau CHANGED DEPARTMENTS Personnel & Organization to Human Resources Management CS - ICT to IT Department
OPINION The right vehicle for whom? also less time for that. In my case, I have a family and I also want to spend time with them. I had more ‘social IHE time’ when I was studying. In your professional activities, is there still a special relationship with your home country? MH: In the longer term, I will most probably return to my country, but for now I feel that I can be more effective working here. Currently, together with our Deputy Director Joop de Schutter, we are setting up a capacity development project for the water sector in Afghanistan. UNESCO-IHE has been an ideal platform to initiate this project; I would never have managed to do this from Afghanistan. Furthermore, I am helping new students from Afghanistan who would like to come here, giving them the right information and directing them to the right persons. MR: Although my professional focus is on sub-Saharan Africa, I still teach in the Peace and Education MSc programme at the Roma Tre University in Rome. I am also on the scientifi c committee of that programme, deciding on themes and course improvements. My colleagues at Roma Tre appreciate getting input from someone who is working in a different system. CL: In setting up projects in Latin America, I can help to overcome the language barrier and make use of the contacts I have there. We are now exploring the possibilities for starting an advisory project in Mexico; in that context, I am in contact with various people from my former University of the State of México in Toluca. Are you in contact with fellow alumni, socially and/or professionally? CL: I am in contact with various alumni in Latin America, working with them on projects in Cuba and Colombia. One of the contacts there is the director of the Cuban National Water Resources Centre. We had never met before, but when he heard I had also studied in Delft, it helped to break the ice in the initial phase of the project. MR: Before coming to UNESCO-IHE, my alumni network opened up work opportunities; I have been working on various projects through these contacts. Professionally, I am not yet working with alumni, but I just started at the beginning of this year, so that will surely come. On the other hand, I am in contact with many of them socially, I’ll be travelling to Namibia in a few weeks to meet several friends from UNESCO-IHE, who will show me around. MH: The alumni from Afghanistan that I studied with now work for the Ministry of Energy and Water and the Ministry of Agriculture in that country. I am involved in a project to bring them together with the University in Kabul, so we communicate a lot. I keep in touch with many alumni socially, especially online, for example through Facebook. By the way, how is your Dutch? Do you feel that you are already part of society? MR: As most people in the Netherlands speak English very well, we can do without, but I do feel I have to learn the basics of the Dutch language as a matter of loyalty to the country I’m working in. CL: (laughs) When I was a student I knew survival words like ‘korting’ (discount) and ‘uitverkoop’ (sale). Now that I’m working here, I’ve learned other words like ‘Belastingdienst’ (tax administration) and ‘formulieren’ (forms). Anyway, it’s not crucial, but knowing a number of words helps a lot in feeling at home here. All over the globe, extensive water reforms have been carried out in the last decades. Reform processes in most countries are inspired by the IWRM principles such as the involvement of stakeholders in decision-making processes and the recognition of water as an economic commodity. These principles have been translated into various vehicles for implementation. Establishing Water User Associations (WUAs), granting water permits and introducing water tariffs are examples that are included in many National Water Acts nowadays. The implications differ greatly between countries, water sectors and individual water users, so whether or not the vehicles that are proposed are considered correct and effective depends on who is being asked. Literature study and my own research in Southern Africa make it clear that organizing water users in WUAs is not only a challenge, entailing the need to make people recognize problems in such a way that collaboration at new territorial levels of the hydrological boundaries seems necessary and possible, but also carries a certain risk. In many countries, WUAs are formed to organize large numbers of smallholder farmers around water to formalize their access to water, to collect water fees, and to facilitate their participation in decision making within collaborative platforms at higher geographic levels. However, ‘traditional’ organization practices currently common among smallholder farmers are not recognized in this process, nor are the broader inequities that exist in society. Large-scale water users are often allowed to represent their own interests and can acquire water permits on an individual basis. Yet the main issue is that they are more acquainted with the explicit and formal organizational structure of the collaborative platforms; they know the rules, so they know how to bend them. As result of this bias, the platforms for interaction are captured by the large-scale water users to control water developments within the catchments, limiting (future) access to water for the smallholders. The smallholder farmers often end up paying more for less. DEPARTMENT CHANGES NEW DEPARTMENTS Following internal reforms, the Institute will have three new academic departments, that are in line with the global developments in scientifi c research and education in the fi eld of water and environment. These departments are suffi ciently distinct in academic orientation and approaches to water systems, while enabling synergies to be found in project activities. These departments have become operational since 1 October 2011. For now, we are pleased to announce the three new academic departments and their new Heads of Department and Deputy Heads of Department, who will be leading them for the coming three years. Water Science and Engineering Head of Department: Prof. Arthur Mynett, PhD Deputy Head of Department: Erik de Ruyter van Steveninck, PhD Environmental Engineering and Water Technology Head of Department: Prof. Damir Brdjanovic, PhD Deputy Head of Department: Saroj Sharma, PhD Integrated Water Systems and Governance Head of Department: Prof. Pieter van der Zaag, PhD Deputy Head of Department: Ioana Popescu, PhD So what are the implications for activities carried out by UNESCO-IHE? Do we teach our students how to facilitate the establishment of WUAs? Do we promote WUAs in our capacitybuilding programs? Do we carry out research on how to make WUAs work? I believe it is time to critically refl ect on the vehicles that are proposed and to ask ourselves who we want our work to be helping. Jeltsje Sanne Kemerink is Lecturer in Integrated Water Resources Management j.kemerink@unesco-ihe.org 27