joint action towards knowledge management dr. inga jacobs [[email protected]] executive manager:...
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Joint action towards knowledge managementDr. Inga Jacobs [[email protected]]Executive Manager: Business Development, Marketing & CommunicationWater Research Commission
18 March 2013
Second NEPAD SANWATCE e-Conference on Knowledge Management in the Southern African water sector
18th-22nd March
Key water challenges
Increasing water scarcity and water stressGrowing population and accelerating demandInefficiencies in water allocationSpatial and temporal availabilityWe use renewal resources at a much higher rate than what is sustainableLack safe water and adequate waste water managementPollutionClimate change
Hum ResCapacityShortfall
Technological
Knowledge
Technical
Management
And we still live in a world where:
2.6 billion people lack adequate sanitationRoughly 800 million people lack safe drinking
waterOne billion people go to bed hungry3 billion people are undernourished60% of ecosystem services are deteriorating One billion people are obeseBetween 30 – 50% food produced is wasted
In order to address our current
challenges we need to both do
different things as well as do the
things we currently do differently.
R Mershalkar, former DG CSIR India
Key questions we have to ask ourselves
What is the impact of our research? How do others perceive the impact?
How do we go about measuring impact?
USA
China main
land UK
German
y
Canad
a
France
Spain
Australi
aIta
lyIndia
Japan
Netherl
ands
South Korea
Taiw
an
Switz
erlan
dBraz
ilIra
n
Greece
South Afri
ca
Belgium
Swed
en0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
10530
3619
2779 27542486 2348
2097 2027 20241796 1655
1340 1286979 914
751 726 707 677 650 598
Country
Num
ber o
f pub
licati
ons
SA’s water research is ranked 19th in the world
Researchersnot being
heard
Economy andSociety not
Being served
The Knowledge Chasm
Building transdisciplinary capacity (what and why)
Multiplicity of actors, perceptions, interests and power disparities (who)
Multiplicity of scale (how)
The nature of collaboration
• Traditionally, the technical and scientific communities have been called on to respond to the concerns of the water sector.
• Emerging challenges and complexities are demanding more integrated levels of ingenuity and expertise from a diverse set of backgrounds.
Building Transdiscplinary Capacity
Multiplicity of actors, perceptions, interests and power disparities
Recommended conceptualization of the
main actors in the policy-making process
• Tendency to prioritise the hydrological basin as the primary unit of analysis but this notion is broadening in scope to include the unique socio-political and socio-economic communities they have formed: from the watershed-to the problemshed-to the virtual basin-to the social basin.
• Changing definition of international river basins – encompassing “lived in” social spaces i.e. The sum of social practices and discourses that exist within the biophysical space.
The multiplicity of scale
• Basins are part of an increasingly complex landscape of policies, trading relations and sectoral demands.
• This institutional complexity presents challenges but also opportunities for the water sector to increasingly integrate with other sectors in terms of decision-making in agriculture, energy, industry and urban development in particular.
Bringing Water onto the Regional Integration Agenda
Summary
• There is a need to address important resource questions in an integrated manner. Challenge is to move from policy to action.
• One size does not fit all.• Need to interrogate both institutional
hardware and software.• Pressures on the resource will be huge, but
this will also present an opportunity to harness water effectively in support of economic growth and development.