Category: News

As AgroParisTech through is “Water for All” Chair is partner of the Water Integrity Network (WIN)

We publish an article on corruption about water in Mexico.

Cody Copeland is journalist based in Mexico City for the CourtHouse News Service and is risking his life by presenting articles as such.

Mexico is running out of water, and authorities appear to be doing little to plug the leak. Activists have proposed a new federal law to manage the country’s water supply.

MEXICO CITY (CN) — “The final revolution will not be for money or material goods, it will be for water, and I think it will be worldwide,” Jorge Zapata González said within earshot of the bronze statue of his grandfather, legendary hero of the Mexican Revolution Emiliano Zapata. “Without water, there is no life.”

Emiliano Zapata fought and died for a set of ideals that have since been boiled down to the pithy phrase “Land and Liberty.” However, more than a century after his murder, his descendants in the southern state of Morelos find themselves fighting what is essentially the same battle: access to resources and economy.

“This is a huge responsibility,” said Zapata González. “It isn’t an easy job, but someone has to do it, and if that person is me, I’ll do it gladly. I prefer to see my people free and healthy, not riddled with cancer from these terrible projects that only end up polluting.”

to read more

His Excellency Mr Ros Vanna, Secretary of State for MPWT through the General Department of Sewerage and Wastewater Management (GDSWM) and his team has virtually met with Mr Faby, Director of the Chair and his team, to speak about the feasibility of a project called CB-SAN Cambodia (Capacity Building for Sanitation Management in Cambodia)
Mr Faby was in Cambodia last June following the demand for collaboration between the Ministry and AgroParisTech sent in February 2023 to Dr Laurent Buisson, Managing Director of AgroParisTech
This project to enhance skills in the sewerage and sanitation sector concerns field operatives, technicians, engineers, department heads and operational managers.

This Chinese city has been expanding at an astonishing rate since 2010.

It now has a population of 36 million, at the foot of the Chinese Himalayas.
Sound familiar?

Anyone interested in China will be familiar with this metropolis at the confluence of the Jialing and Yangtze rivers. The second capital of the hashtag#Sichuan, along with Chengdu.

Since 1997, it has experienced one of the world’s fastest urban growth rates, the result of a colossal rural exodus.

Never before has a city grown so fast.
There are two reasons for this unprecedented phenomenon in the history of Homo Sapiens.

1. Firstly, the 3 Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydroelectric power station, commissioned between 2003 and 2012. The construction work alone displaced 2 million people. NASA scientists have calculated that the mass of water stored in the dam is so enormous that it lengthens the duration of a day by 0.06 microseconds and reinforces the flattening of the Earth.

The energy released by this power station has attracted millions of men and women, factories, homes, towers of metal and stone to this new city of planetary proportions.

2. But that’s not all.
Chongqing is the terminus of the New Silk Road. In 2011, a railroad line was inaugurated between Chongqing and Duisburg in Germany. This 11,000 km journey takes 13 to 16 days by train, compared with 36 days by container ship.
This city has thus helped make China Europe’s leading trading partner since 2014, ahead of the United States.

Why is it said to be the world’s largest municipality?
In demography, there are at least three ways of comparing the population of cities. https://buff.ly/37kiPo7

Firstly, there are what are known as urban areas or conurbations, which bring together several metropolises. For example, the Pearl River Delta encompasses Canton, Hong Kong, Shenzen and Macau. It is the world’s most populous urban area, with 70 million inhabitants.

Then there are the metropolises, often spanning several municipalities. The largest is Tokyo, with 39.1 million inhabitants in 82 municipalities.

And finally, the municipality.
Chongqing is unique in that it was created specifically to manage the relocation of people displaced by the Three Gorges Dam. The municipality of Chongqing alone governs 36 million souls in an area the size of Benelux!
It’s the biggest in the world.

Jean Antoine Faby, Chair Director, Maria Magaña, MS OpT Academic Manager and Wilfried Ligan, Finance Manager, welcomed to Paris for 4 days the 8 representatives of the 4 “Centers of Excellence” working in close collaboration with the AgroParisTech – SUEZ “Water for All” Chair.

Mrs Leonidah Kerubo and Mr Thomas Mbuya from the University of Nairobi (Kenya)

Professor Sampson Oduro-Kwarteng and Professor Helen Essandoh from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi (Ghana).

Mrs Pinnara Ket and Mr Chantha Oeurng from the Cambodian Institute of Technology in Phnom Penh (Cambodia)

Professor Mamadou Lamine Ndiaye and Professor Ndiaga Ndiaye from Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar (Senegal)

Over the course of 4 days, they will present and discuss the strategy of their respective universities on the themes of water, sanitation and solid waste.

The strengthening of the partnership between them and AgroParisTech through the “Water for All” Chair will enable our African and Asian auditors and students to pursue university courses in these 4 countries.

Our 8 representatives took advantage of a dinner to meet the General delegate of the SUEZ Foundation, Muriel Leroy, and SUEZ’s new Science and Technology Director, Guillaume Stahl, who was accompanied by his predecessor Xavier Litrico.

Summer has arrived in the province of Sistan and Baluchistan, an impoverished fragment of chapped earth and shimmering heat in the southeastern corner of Iran, and all people can talk about is how to get water.

For weeks now, taps in towns like Zahedan have only produced a salty trickle that’s getting weaker. In villages that the water pipes never reached, the few remaining residents say that people can barely find enough water to do laundry or wash, let alone fish, farm or raise livestock.

“Sometimes, just to wash the dishes, we have to wait so long,” said Setareh, 27, a student at the university in Zahedan, the provincial capital. “Everything from cooking to other chores is an ordeal for us.”

Drought has plagued Iran for centuries, but the threat has intensified in recent years as political priorities took precedence over proper water management, experts say. Climate change has only made matters worse in a region that generally receives no rain for seven months of the year and where temperatures can reach 124 degrees in July.

Sistan and Baluchistan, where Iranian lawmakers warn that water will run out completely within three months, may seem an extreme case. But other regions are not to be outdone. Drought is forcing water cuts in the capital, Tehran, shrinking Lake Ummia – the largest saltwater lake in the Middle East – and the livelihoods that go with it, and fuelling mass migration from the Iranian countryside to its cities.

to read more

Jean Antoine Faby, Director of the “Water for All” Chair spent 3.5 day at the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation(MPWT)  in charge of the Sanitation in Cambodia.

During this period, he held a training session for Decision makers  for implementation of future action plans, Capacity bulding managers and Operation managers on field for Collective and non collective sanitation / Financial managers, a three days session on collective and non collective sanitation, skills and expertise in sanitation (in a qualitative and quantitative point of view) and Sanitation: an ecological service.

On the last meting day, he was assisted by Marc Muller, from Nodalis Conseil in France, who delivered his expertise on Financial stability of a sanitation service and Pricing models for collective and non-collective sanitation

This training session was the first of a long series as AgroParisTech and the MPWT are on a way to sign an agreement for trainers training session and furthermore water and sanitation students training session in Cambodia for the coming years. 

Source : GAB | The Global Anticorruption Blog.   December 3, 2022

Not Our Job Say Water-Sector Professionals

Guest Post is by Juliette Martinez-Rossignol, a graduate student of Political Economy of Development at Sciences Po, Paris, and at the London School of Economics; Laura Jean Palmer-Moloney, a hydro-geographer and consultant with Visual Teaching Technologies specializing in wetlands ecology and hydrology; and Mark Pyman a leader in corruption prevention efforts and co-founder of CurbingCorruption.

It is hard to imagine an area where corruption has a greater impact than in the management and distribution of the world’s supply of water. Examples abound. Locally, as in the misuse of water in a municipality; regionally, as in unregulated diversions in watersheds; and globally, as in corrupt mismanagement of marine protected areas or the diversion of funds intended to combat climate change.

We asked a cross-section of those who have devoted their professional careers to managing the world’s water supply what they were doing to combat corruption in the sector.  Interviewees included engineers in water utilities in the U.S., Mexico, and elsewhere, environmental lawyers, geographers, geologists, ocean economy investors, ecosystem scientists, natural resources managers, plus water anti-corruption practitioners and journalists to.

What we found is enormously troublesome. ……

Interviewees were uncomfortable in the extreme even talking about corruption.

We heard several explanations, including the absence of professional anti-corruption training for water professionals and that the subject is almost never included on professional agendas, not even as a topic of conversation. Most notably, our interviewees questioned the limits of their personal and professional responsibilities. Do we have a responsibility in relation to corruption, whatever its impact on water performance outcomes? Should we seek to recognize corruption, take some responsibility for reducing it, think about preventive measures? There was an instinctive response that preventing or tackling corruption was not part of the job of a water professional.

The thinking behind our research, developed by the not-for-profit organization CurbingCorruption, …. …. Read more ….

These summary presentation documents prepared by 37 specialist SPECIALIZED MASTER “Water for All” – OpT session 2019-2020 (23 English speaking /14 French speaking – 7th promotion called promotion Gérard PAYEN) are the outcome of 13 months of a training program between:
• Training on the AgroParisTech campus in Montpellier over 6 months in 3 phases
• Immersion and case studies abroad over 3 weeks: Singapore/Cambodia – Casablanca/Ouagadougou
• 6 months in their own departments to collect precise data, exchange with their teams, share diagnoses and
strategies

Each OPT trainee presented, from April 2020 to June 2020, his or her strategic action plan (SAP), a real professional thesis, applied to the management of change which he or she had been thinking about throughout the training.
It is the result of an analysis and diagnosis of a water and sanitation service situation on the one hand, then in its extension, of a strategy that is as elaborate as possible, and finally of the prefiguration of actions to be undertaken.
Their action plan constitutes a “scenario of the possible” in a 5- or 10-years projection, while taking into account, or not, actions or investments already undertaken in their service or at a state level. They are described in this corpus.
They provide insights into their own analysis of the situation and how to achieve concrete improvements.
By taking a step back and giving their point of view, sometimes in layman’s terms, the OPT trainees want to make the reader aware of the  complexity of their environment which can, and must, lead to the transformation of their service.
These presentation sheets are personal and can be improved upon, sometimes in different styles. They are intended to give the reader a taste of their vision and the horizons for service development as imagined by the author, an OPT trainee. Sometimes heterogeneous in their form, even in their content, they are the result of work carried out in three stages. They have the merit of introducing the main dimensions of water and/or sanitation sector management in their country.
They show the questions and sometimes the doubts and obstacles that they face on their way to improving access to water and sanitation for all citizens of their city and country.
Resolutely framed towards the future, these documents are not “scientific reports” as such but rather a series of messages which highlight that managers are working to move forward and progress in their companies, regardless of the hazards and unfavourable elements that exist.
In this respect it’s only right and proper to bear in mind the context of the many and varied socio-economic indicators which exist in their respective countries that are well below those of
western countries apart from when it comes to issues of growth. It is also clear that the emergence of the COVID pandemic, since the beginning of 2020, will thwart these visions and actions envisaged before the crisis. Nevertheless, they are still on the agenda as the new OPT 2021-22 class (47 trainees) completes their course and sometimes revises and adjusts these action plans…

This work and this course at AgroParisTech, our renowned public service management school, were made possible thanks to the support of the SUEZ group, the French Development Agency (AFD), the French water agencies and the general management of the companies from which our executive managers come.
Facing the challenge, they describe, let us wish them all a constant commitment and determination in the WATER AND SANITATION sectors, which are too often neglected in terms of investment and capacity, even though they are decisive for the future success of their countries and their continents!

Corpus_Compendium_2019-20

These summary presentation documents prepared by 37 specialist SPECIALIZED MASTER “Water for All” – OpT session 2019-2020 (23 English speaking /14 French speaking – 7th promotion called promotion Gérard PAYEN) are the outcome of 13 months of a training program between:
• Training on the AgroParisTech campus in Montpellier over 6 months in 3 phases
• Immersion and case studies abroad over 3 weeks: Singapore/Cambodia – Casablanca/Ouagadougou
• 6 months in their own departments to collect precise data, exchange with their teams, share diagnoses and
strategies

Each OPT trainee presented, from April 2020 to June 2020, his or her strategic action plan (SAP), a real professional thesis, applied to the management of change which he or she had been thinking about throughout the training.
It is the result of an analysis and diagnosis of a water and sanitation service situation on the one hand, then in its extension, of a strategy that is as elaborate as possible, and finally of the prefiguration of actions to be undertaken.
Their action plan constitutes a “scenario of the possible” in a 5- or 10-years projection, while taking into account, or not, actions or investments already undertaken in their service or at a state level. They are described in this corpus.
They provide insights into their own analysis of the situation and how to achieve concrete improvements.
By taking a step back and giving their point of view, sometimes in layman’s terms, the OPT trainees want to make the reader aware of the  complexity of their environment which can, and must, lead to the transformation of their service.
These presentation sheets are personal and can be improved upon, sometimes in different styles. They are intended to give the reader a taste of their vision and the horizons for service development as imagined by the author, an OPT trainee. Sometimes heterogeneous in their form, even in their content, they are the result of work carried out in three stages. They have the merit of introducing the main dimensions of water and/or sanitation sector management in their country.
They show the questions and sometimes the doubts and obstacles that they face on their way to improving access to water and sanitation for all citizens of their city and country.
Resolutely framed towards the future, these documents are not “scientific reports” as such but rather a series of messages which highlight that managers are working to move forward and progress in their companies, regardless of the hazards and unfavourable elements that exist.
In this respect it’s only right and proper to bear in mind the context of the many and varied socio-economic indicators which exist in their respective countries that are well below those of
western countries apart from when it comes to issues of growth. It is also clear that the emergence of the COVID pandemic, since the beginning of 2020, will thwart these visions and actions envisaged before the crisis. Nevertheless, they are still on the agenda as the new OPT 2021-22 class (47 trainees) completes their course and sometimes revises and adjusts these action plans…

This work and this course at AgroParisTech, our renowned public service management school, were made possible thanks to the support of the SUEZ group, the French Development Agency (AFD), the French water agencies and the general management of the companies from which our executive managers come.
Facing the challenge, they describe, let us wish them all a constant commitment and determination in the WATER AND SANITATION sectors, which are too often neglected in terms of investment and capacity, even though they are decisive for the future success of their countries and their continents!

Corpus_Compendium_2019-20