Geneva Water Hub

Geneva Water Hub

Established	2014
Focus	Water Research and Policy Think-Tank
Key people	François Münger (Director) Christian Bréthaut (Scientific Director) Danilo Türk (Policy Advisor)
Location	Institute for Environmental Sciences of the University of Geneva, and World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
Website	www.genevawaterhub.org/

The Geneva Water Hub is a water research and policy institute headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Its established by the Swiss Confederation and the University of Geneva. A think-tank focused on hydro-diplomacy to prevent and resolve water-related conflicts, it is active in developing policies around global water governance and its challenges, conducts water-related research and runs water governance education courses.

History 

Founded in 2014, by Switzerland's Agency for Development and Cooperation for Global Programme Water and the University of Geneva's Institute for Environmental Sciences, the Geneva Water Hub works to bridge the gap between water research, policy and practice on the ground – often at cross boundary and river basin scale. It has offices at the Institute for Environmental Sciences of the University of Geneva and the World Meteorological Organization, and in 2017 became a Centre of the University of Geneva.

The Geneva Water Hub is structured around three main functions: research and education, a think tank and networking. It acted as the Secretariat to the Global High Level Panel on Water and Peace and is currently the secretariat for the Group of Friends for Water and Peace, a group of about forty countries represented by their Permanent Missions to the United Nations in Geneva.  It also co-ordinates the Universities Partnership for Water Cooperation and Diplomacy, launched at the 2018 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland with IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, the German-Kazakh University in Almaty, and Oregon State University. This partnership is a university consortium to encourage dialogue and capacity-building between North and South, East and West, and among different professional sectors.  

Key works

Water and Peace  

In 2015, the World Economic Forum ranked water scarcity as the largest global risk over the next decade. Already, 40% of the world's population is affected by water scarcity on a planet where more than 260 international rivers cross many man-made boundaries. In addition, more than half the planet's wetlands have disappeared and climate change is impacting weather and water patterns around the world.  

Yet, as the dialogue of ‘water wars’ increases, research shows that water is far more a tool for cooperation and peace than conflict. During the 20^th century there were only seven minor confrontations over water, with 145 treaties signed in the same 100 years.

Through research, policy and hydro-diplomacy the Geneva Water Hub works to shift this global dialogue from ‘water and conflict’ to ‘water for peace and cooperation’, and to show that this focus delivers better water governance and the long-term protection of critical water resources and infrastructure.  

Global High-Level Panel on Water and Peace

In 2015, the Geneva Water Hub began working as Secretariat to the Global High Level Panel on Water and Peace – a 15 country co-convened initiative focused on strengthening the global framework to prevent and resolve water-related conflicts and to facilitate the use of water as an instrument of peace and cooperation.  

The Geneva Water Hub organised Round Tables with internationally recognised experts on topics from “Refugees and Access to Water” and the “Protection of Water During and After Armed Conflicts” to “Financing Incentives for Water Cooperation” and “Data for Water, Peace and Security”.  The Round Tables provided a neutral, safe space for difficult questions and open dialogue. They also helped to produce the recommendations later launched by the Panel.  

In its 2017 report “A Matter of Survival” the Global High-Level Panel on Water and Peace outlined its recommendations for a fundamental rethinking of international water cooperation from the UN Security Council to other multilateral institutions and down to grass-roots level organisations.

As part of its role as Secretariat, the Geneva Water Hub created the “Symphony for Water and Peace”, a musical interpretation of the report, as a hymn and inspiration to water and peace initiatives around the globe. The collaborative work is composed by Mich Gerber (Switzerland), Alune Wade (Senegal), Tarek Younis (Jordan), Carlos Guzman (Costa Rica) and Serge Frasunkiewicz (Brazil).

Water Governance Education  

The Geneva Water Hub offers certified training on water governance including: The “Summer School in Water Governance: Frameworks and Negotiations” which take place annually in June, the “Distance learning course on International Water Law and the Law of Transboundary Aquifers” in collaboration with DiploFoundtation.

Building on already existing world-class International Water Law expertise at the University of Geneva Platform for International Water Law, the Geneva Water Hub also offers several open access Massive Online Open Courses through the Coursera platform for water technicians and the water policy community. These courses in Water Resources Policy and Management, International Water Law and Ecosystem Services: A Method for Sustainable Development have already been followed by more than 20-thousand participants.  

External links

• Geneva Water Hub
• Education and research platform of the Geneva Water Hub
• Portfolio 2017 Global Programme Water
• High-Level Panel Charts Path for Water-Driven Peace and Cooperation
• A Matter of Survival - Report of the Global High-Level Panel on Water and Peace
• UNESCO Chair in Hydropolitics
• Water Wars? Experts Urge Rethinking Our Relationship with Water
• Foreign Minister Meets Director of Geneva Water Hub
• EIP Water
• Luc Hoffmann Institute
• E-learning international water law
• UN Environment, The Human Right to Water
• IUCN: Nexus Governance: Harnessing Contending Forces at Work
• IHE: Launch of Universities’ Partnership for Water Cooperation & Diplomacy
• Coursera course: Gestion et Politique de l'eau
• Reliefweb: “Preventing conflict and sustaining peace through promoting water cooperation, in New York, Geneva, and around the world”
• New Security Beat: A Matter of Survival: Learning to Cooperate Over Water
• A Critical Approach to International Water Management Trends - Policy and Practice
• Le statut d'ouvrages communs et le partages des bénéfices dans les bassins du fleuve Sénégal et Niger

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