New Water Policy and Practice Issue 4, Number 1, Fall 2017 | Page 3

New Water Policy & Practice Journal • Volume 4, Number 1 • Fall 2017
Editorial
Pathways to Improving Water Education and Leadership
W
elcome to the sixth issue of New Water Policy and Practice Journal: A
platform for the world’s emerging water leaders and thinkers.
Recently we had the pleasure of participating in the UNESCO-led work-
shop Pathways towards Improved Water Education Curricula, held in Penang, Ma-
laysia. Coordinated by UNESCO’s Jakarta Regional Sciences Bureau for Asia and
the Pacific, the workshop was part of the project ‘Upscaling water security to meet
local, regional, and global challenges’.
Some very clear messages came from that workshop for the future of wa-
ter management. Firstly, there was a clear understanding that sustainable water
solutions, whether at the local, regional or global levels, require creativity, new
advances in scientific knowledge, discoveries and innovations through strong sci-
entific cooperation. Secondly, innovation geared towards sustainable development
has the potential to life economic growth, create green jobs, and boost inclusive
social development while at the same time contributing to water protection and
conservation. Thirdly, providing solutions to the current global water challenges
requires upscaling of existing local approaches and knowledge of the interrelation-
ships between environmental conditions and the state of water resources, as well
as instruments and techniques for water management at the local, national and
regional levels. And therein is the key theme of this issue.
The second issue of NWPP, back in Spring 2015, was led by an excellent
paper from André Taylor, Wouter T. Lincklaen Arriëns and Matthew Laing on
Understanding Six Water Leadership Roles: a Framework to Help Build Leadership
Capacity. So it is with great pleasure that we introduce another paper from André
Taylor which builds on the first, entitled Growing as a water leader: beware of six
traps. In this paper, André describes six leadership-related ‘traps’ that developing
leaders in the water sector commonly fall into, as well as ways to avoid or escape
them. The paper draws on André’s experience as a leadership development spe-
cialist with the International Water Centre (Australia) over the last 10 years in
building the leadership capacity of water practitioners so they can initiate and
drive positive change. It makes very interesting reading.
This sixth issue presents a refreshed structure of five sections (including
the Editorial), within which we have framed the articles, and we hope this can
make the reading more pleasant. In the Outstanding Leadership Practices section
of NWPP we aim to showcase exactly that—examples of outstanding leadership in
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doi: 10.18278/nwpp.4.1.1