Water jobs: Spotlight on a key development issue

Water management issues have received increasing attention from governments, international institutions, nonprofits and the private sector around the world. It may be hard to follow the job market for water experts due to the variety of opportunities out there, but one thing is clear: There’s a need for development professionals with expertise in everything from sanitation to agriculture and international law to lobbying. “One of the main challenges is that water is not a sector. It’s a huge area,” said Johan Kuylenstierna, chief technical advisor to the Chair of UN-Water. “You have water as part of agriculture, water as part of ecosystem management, water as part of industrial development.” Indeed, the management of water resources is highly complex. This complexity stands as a real issue while the world is facing a growing water crisis. According to the World Water Council, more than one out of six people lack access to drinking water and more than two out of six lack adequate sanitation. There are regional imbalances between the usage and the availability of water resources. Because of population growth, industrialization and expanding urbanization, that situation is not likely to get better. Coordination between the different sectors managing water is seen as imperative. But it is rarely a reality. “There is a lack in fostering integrated solutions. Each sector focuses on its own problem, which means that the combined challenge is being overlooked,” Kuylenstierna explained. “Many different sectors are using water so if you do not get them to work together then you may end up in a situation where you have competition, for instance between rural areas and major cities or between agriculture and industry. In many developing countries, this is very common.” As this new challenge arises, it may open interesting opportunities for development professionals eager to work on water management issues. According to Kuylenstierna, the public sector - from local governments all the way up to international institutions - is looking for professionals able to address integrated policymaking and implementation. “There is a need to integrate different decision making tools,” he said. “We have good ‘sector people’ but we need people who will have the capacity to address integrated policy making which is not easy to find.” Moreover, the interest of international water organizations such as the Global Water Partnership, World Water Council and International Union for the Conservation of Nature for this kind of expertise is likely to expand the number of contracting opportunities. In general, the ability to provide professional expertise in different areas seems to be determinant in finding good water-related positions in the public sector. The combination of skills a job candidate brings to the table is key. “There is always a demand for skilled people that have been working in development in general and that can also offer specialty knowledge as well. I think that s crucial, whether it is legal issues, or financing or project management or gender issues or whatever,” said Jakob Granit, project director of the Stockholm International Water Institute and former water expert of the World Bank. “To sum up, a good specialist knowledge is always very useful in addition to a broad understanding of the complexity of water management resources.” For instance, organizations such as the United Nations and its sister agencies as well as the World Bank tend to look for financial experts and economists. Financial experts would know how to attract money to the water sector and ensure that investments are sustainable. But a clear understanding of water issues is also compulsory as water cannot be addressed as any other economic good; thus, it may be challenging to attract money for water projects. Economists would be able to put water issues into a macroeconomic context. The objective is to make the case, from a macroeconomic point of view, that countries should invest in their water resources because this is fundamental to development. The World Bank, for instance, is currently calculating the cost to China for not investing properly in water resources. “It is a tricky sector to get into,” Kuylenstierna conceded. “If you work with water issues, you would see a lot of professionals, they come from other sectors, they ended up working on water issues but they did not start off like that. But at the same time, if you have that competence, you can work with that sort of integrated water management. You also have the potential to work in many organizations. But you will have to explain what your skills are and you will have to combine them with something else.” Granit follows the same line of thought: “It is not a huge market but it is growing, and we need to start employing more of this type of professionals.” It is hard to generalize what skills will be required of someone working on water issues, but a quick look at a recent opening for a senior network officer in West & Central Africa within the Global Water Partnership is revealing. GWP tends to offer similar positions in other regions. The responsibility of the senior network officer, the GWP job ad states, is to coordinate the network’s activities in the assigned region. The job requires monitoring the financial and programmatic performance of the region. In terms of qualifications and experience, GWP asks for someone with: Indeed, professional flexibility and versatility seem to be the key when it comes to snatching a job in what may become a key issue in international development. Read more career advice articles.