 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome. Welcome to IHC and the valedictory address of Professor Guy Allard. Guy, may I please invite you to come on stage. Dear Mr. Richter, dear colleagues and family and friends, I'm very glad to be a honored that you are here now attending my valedictory address. In the Netherlands and Belgium, we are now again experiencing a very dry spring and this graph you have certainly seen in the newspapers two days ago. This is the rainfall deficit. This is the amount of the number of millimeters of rain deficit over here. The blue line is your average so your past century, that's normal. The red and the orange are extreme dry years, 1976 for example, and we are on the black line. You see we are in difficult terrain here and the range of today and yesterday will not change very much. And then last year in July, the Ardennes, Bloomberg and the Eiffel were hit by unparalleled floods claiming more than 200 deaths and that in the most rich part of the world. So water is a complicated affair. We love water and we hate water. Today I will talk about this complexity across the globe, which will add even more complexity. First I will look at how we stand with water, what the status is and what we can do about it by good science, by capable institutions and also by fines. Because water is complicated, we do not quite understand it, we can control it well and when we do something or some grants, we have success and on others we do not have success. So we say that the glass is half full, very prudent. So the really important question is, is the glass getting fuller or is it empty? In 1986, 25 years ago I was appointed here, a professor of public health engineering at that time the International Water Supply Decade was running. It aimed to bring by 1990, so long ago, it aimed to bring drinking water and sanitation to all households. The decade was considered a failure and here you see what was achieved. So 1980 to 1990 the dark blue line is the world population from 4.5 to 5 billion. The promise was to get from here to full coverage and in reality only, you know, maybe three quarters was achieved. So there was a major shortfall. I joined an international conference, I was disappointed here, an international conference in The Hague, where the United Nations and the donor countries debated how or whether to continue financial support to the global programs over supply sanitation because they just have proven that it was not working. It was an important event because John Caldometer, the chief water advisor to the World Bank and by the way an alumnus of IG of 1976, so he convinced the donors that it was meritorious and useful to continue financing. You see me signing here. I didn't contribute much at that time. In the back is hiding Frank Harfield, a director at UNDP at that time. But more important was that at that event in 1988, it was the first time that Nicolette and I met each other without us knowing that we were there together and that we had a future together. The main reasons for the shortfall were lack of technologies, governments who did not know how to engage with communities, and weak capacity, so little knowledge, weak organizations in the countries. And indeed, I had experienced that for the first time myself when in Indonesia. I often saw that like here, you know, Indonesian family, Japanese, Japanese family that had destroyed its new water tap because they didn't like the new tap they didn't like to pay for the water. So now we have a new program, a new global policy to bring to try to bring again water to the households. It's now part of the SDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals, and SDGs 6 and the 6 out of 17, there are 17 goals. Yeah, we can see what we have achieved so far. So it started somewhere in 2013, but you see that by 2020, yes, on the rural households we have achieved some progress. In the urban houses, the situation has stagnated, partly because of course, cities have grown so fast. The population has grown from 6 to 7, 7.8 billion. So in total, we definitely cannot show great results. The figures for sanitation are even worse, a third worse, and there's no way that we can achieve the SDG by 2030, which is in eight years from now. But some are already concluding that this is a kind of failure, but I would argue that the glass is still half full because in the meantime, more than a billion households or people have received this water service. Secondly, many countries have become richer and more capable, they are better prepared for the future. And of course, finally, the objective was not very realistic, with complex challenges like this is essential to self-realistic priorities. Other SDGs, other goals, they want to expand food production, energy, jobs, industry, what have you, it's all good, except they all use plenty of water, and more importantly, they do damage, they have little cycles. This picture reflects the mindset of the water manager, and she sees the water system in the middle, it's a big system. Agriculture industry households are primarily consumers of water and polluted water. Ecosystems thrive on water, they need water, but at the same time, they are the foundation, they are the basis that provides water to the water system. And then thirdly, we have, as a society, we have our know-how and our organizations on how we manage and safeguard the water system. Now, unfortunately, the water systems are deteriorating quite rapidly, so land use changes are a main culprit. And ecosystems, for example, are being destroyed, so the protective economic value of ecosystems and biodiversity is being destroyed at a rate of 10 to 30 trillions of US dollars per year. So it has launched, and actually this system now is proceeding faster than before. The rapid increase in water abstraction also means that we sit in a major shift now. So 10 years ago, one in six people were living in water-short places, so 60% of the population 10 years ago. But by 2040, which is tomorrow, more than half of the world population will live in basins where the basins are all water-short. So they will have to deal with water stress. And it means that we have to change our mindset, so far we have always thought of the world as a place abundant with water, with here there are a few deserts, but in reality, in 30 years, it will be a world that will be structurally short of water. Where water is short, people tend to ground water and we see one dramatic consequence of that when the land is sinking. And that's happening across the world at an increasing rate as well. So here in California, you see about 40 meters. The land has dropped because of both pumping for irrigation. But also in the Netherlands, the bunker, he's sitting on his piles. But also in China, in Mexico City, to can display so many places. When you have the sinking, the second consequence is that it becomes more prominent for floods. So because rainwater flows to the lowest place, obviously. And so when I was working in Jakarta in 20 years ago for the World Bank, I did there a renewed effort to address the recurrent floods of Jakarta. In 2001 and 2002, I was faced with a typical flood. And you see, here's a flood we all know versus the water is brown. So this is the main avenue in Jakarta, the water is brown because of all the silt that has been flushed from the hillsides by the rain. And we have overcast rainy scars. But at one day, we were starting to see this. So here we see blueish white water gushing through the streets. And you see also the sun is shining. So what was happening here? So here you see Jakarta, 12 million people in the conservation on the coast with the Java Sea. And we knew that the coast of the city had already sunk by four meters. I was still sinking in other places, two meters sinking. But what we had witnessed was that actually for the first time in history, so the city or the coast at least of the city, coastline had sunk below the maximum level of the very high pikes that every few years occurs. So that was kind of a wake-up call, a workshop we could say. And you see how even between 2007 and 2013, the sea wall has to be tightened to keep away the tide. But it was also a wake-up call because suddenly everybody realized that Indonesia up to 50 million people are at risk to seaborn floods. Now the rising sea level because of climate change will make this more acute in the next century. However, climate-induced rise goes by about two millimeters per year, whereas the land subsidence caused by bad water management goes 100 times faster. And yet, many Malaysian politicians still blame climate change for very sudden gear. I showed this slide before to demonstrate interdependency, but from what I now just described, in fact it should be like this. So water is not dominant at all. It is a very small and very vulnerable domain. And it is very dependent on what is decided and done in the other domains. So the question is can we keep the glass half full? We need to use indeed our knowledge and our institutional government capacity to improve this. To be more specific, what did I contribute? So the past 30 years, it was very challenging, but we kept the glass half full. But in the next 30 years, it will become much more challenging. So science is one way to go forward, capable institutions, as I mentioned, and violence. Now, I must say to my astonishment, I found that I worked in water and on water already for half a century. I apologize for that. I chose to study water treatment for my engineering dissertation in Leuvenbach in 1974. So that's almost half a century. The proof is exciting. I let you doctorate on flocculation and treatment for drinking water. At that time, I was also interested in educational affairs and I was part of a small group that was working on the restructuring, the renewal of the engineering curriculum at our university. Life changing was my assignment. A few years later, so between 1981 and 84, to go to Surabaya, live in Surabaya for three years and support the technical university with their new department for environmental engineering. It taught me many important things and respect for different value systems. This work proved very productive. So with a colleague, we wrote the first handbook in Bahasa Indonesia on water treatment. We told that Benelikian air, air means not air, but means water. And it still is in its 20th edition available in bookstores in Indonesia. Unfortunately, my engagement and my contribution to the department's choir proved more controversial. I think the singing contest we ended last. I don't know why. I was appointed then in 1996 here at IHG for public health engineering. Institute was at that time world famous outside of the Netherlands, but needed restructuring. Professor Sagan, the new rector, he asked me to convert existing one-year diploma courses into more modern master of science programs and also start a beauty program. So the first three master of science in in private engineering were delivered in 1987. I was appointed by a slacker together with a L9 deck. Another subsequent years we expanded the post-private programs, including a lot of specialized courses for Iranian engineers, Indonesian engineers, Libyan engineers, Eastern European engineers and scientists. We established master's and PhD programs. We invested heavily in computer facilities, top-notch computer facilities. Don't laugh, this was in 1988. At that time, these were very powerful, most powerful equipment that you could buy on the market. And IHG has been from then and until now a leader in the world in the field of this called hydroinformatics. We also invested heavily in the laboratories. Sorry, that is also first. So the creation technology that we set up together with our colleagues from the Tech University Delft. The expansion in the transition is shown here. So here you see from 1985 down to two years 2000. The yellow line is the diploma course participation and the gray one the MSc participation, so MSc to completely over. But you see also that at some point we had 350 students from all over the world studying here under this roof. And the professionalism was exemplary, I thought, because as an example in 1989 just after the Iraqi-Iranian war in the Gulf, we had here specialized courses for Iranian and Iraqi engineers. And they would collaborate in many classes, most over in the class of groundwater hydrology, which was taught by Jacob Baer, an Israeli professor. For the research program, we developed concepts applicable to the conditions in developing countries of low investment, high science, and ultimately using the local conditions. The first collaboration started with Suja University in China. And out of this collaboration came also a first PhD activity with Chao Yoshin, who in 1994 was the first environmental doctor to graduate at the same time as we had the first hydraulic engineer graduating. And Chao he studied aerobic biodegradation, he founded the canals, regular national courses, you had a biomass and biofilm to metabolize organic pollution. With Professor Ranvius, we started studies on ecotechnology. So our Ugandan fellows worked in the Nakifu Swamp in Kampala, in Victoria. And the emergent, sorry, it was here, and the emergent papyrus, miscarthidium, and other reasons formed floating mass with enough biomass to convert to absorb all the organic pollution and the nutrients. So these studies demonstrate the viability of cost-effectiveness nature-based solutions. Green infrastructure is called, and that is now mainstream in the water management literature. Similar studies by Al-Muzaidi on ponds in Yemen caught in Daqwit. Here in Bangladesh, Daqwit is an harvester and fed to fish, and you see a healthy catch is collected. Al-Hambi, Al-Abumadi from Yemen, Palestine and other countries worked on the valuation allocation of water between different uses for resource recycling in Yemen, Palestine, Jordan, North Africa, and a few more. So it was always easy going. Here in Bangladesh, I was crossing this bamboo bridge, which was fine, don't laugh, because the next one, my colleague from Wageningen, Mike Freker, he did fall in the water. But here in Yemen, a year later, returning from Radar, from Radar Project, we were held up by Kalashnikovs, by a tribe that wanted to carjack our car. I drove into a ditch filled with fish. Only in a few minutes to be woken up, so to speak, by the bullets also shot by the villagers behind me, who then made sure that the hijackers, the carjackers, were fleeing. But in the end, nobody got hurt. But it's based on wood and wastewater reuse, filtration, and for making important research topics in this institute. And then in 1996, I became a sufferer of the World Bank in Washington, D.C., that retained relationship with IHC. And some police thought that I had surrendered my research inclination by doing so. But the World Bank actually is equally a research organization, some knowledge organization, and it invests only in development programs that are innovative, not the reading ones. And this also made me shift from water supply and wastewater to the broader water resources, irrigation, basin management. And for example, I designed the make-on strategy in East Asia, in Central Asia, parts of the Sirdaia and IHC programs in the Balkans, Sava, Trina, and Hylfa programs. In Poland, I led a program to ensure flood protection on the Odra in Polish and the Visula, Viswaj in Polish, so which together covered half of the country. The Odra runs from Szczecin via Wrocław to the Czech Republic, 900 km long, and it had suffered in 97 massive floods, 55 people killed. So this overall program was about €2.5 billion, which makes it indeed a large program, comparable to the Dutch room for the river program on the Rhine and the Isle. The innovative aspects include the optimization of the manual dykes, drenching, ecological overflow areas, reservoirs, land use, but also the amicable relocation of villages and the rejuvenation of the cultural assets of the city of Wrocław. The larger challenge, however, was to make about 200 ministries, agencies, provinces, municipalities, water wars, and would help you to collaborate effectively on this program, so that built on my interest in organizational management and how knowledge and capacity of water organizations can be strengthened. In the beginning, you remember a while ago, I described how the glass was half empty in 1990, after the water decades, and with Frank Hartfeld, who has now joined us, had UDP, and with our colleagues in IHU, so himself and I, Paul van Hofweger, Ademira Sundersing, and our UN colleagues, we launched a new initiative, namely Symposium, and a platform to study how the right type of knowledge and capacity can be developed in governance and through education. So this led to this book, Strategy for what is the capacity building. An important tenet was cultural sensitivity, very important, and that's also what we as organizers did do, being cultural sensitives to the touch situation, and mind you, I still have my gloves. Maybe I can get them in the garden. This led to a series of six international symposiums every four or five years, and the last one was in 2020, just around the corner, the virtual event of which the proceedings are being printed, as we speak. The capacity development has since become the central pillar of IHU's educational programs. It also spawned dedicated research, and my two last research fellows studied how knowledge travels through society and through confidence, and how strength in them, and you did Casper's smile, and did so for Indonesia's Ministry of Public Works and Water Management, and SILAS KURIER NANDE did the same on African water utilities. Water management in the world is still too much a bureaucratic affair. Water organization would be called more flexible, use adaptive approaches to today start with the investments that will protect us in 30 years from now. To have successful water management, oh yeah, no, I found this in my papers, and this is a page from Casper's Mars PhD. So, you know, in retrospect, looking at it, I think when she received that by email at 10 in the evening, I wonder if she had enough patients to read all my comments, and advice, and suggestions, and criticisms. But to have successful water management, effective water management, we need also finance, so we need to engage private capital for this, because between now and 2050, when all this stuff needs to be done, needs to be ready, major capital is needed, because we need to still provide basic water supply and sanitation services. We have to adapt to the climate, the climate change, flood protection, drought management, and we also have, in this country in Belgium, to replace all the infrastructure. So far, developing countries have been meeting these needs by perhaps 25-30% only, so it's a big gap. Also, the rich countries on average have been meeting only three-quarters of the required investment. Public budgets, of course, will, very importantly, increasingly prove insufficient, because also, there are older demands that need to be met, such as health, education, and so on. At this moment on average, only 30% of the financing needs in the developed countries are covered, so we have a major challenge ahead of us. So we need to bring in, with the public, also the private capital. And the good news is that, actually, there is a lot of private capital available and increasingly interested. So here we see a comparison, here's a population, the global population, billions, the GDP, the financial capital, you know, available sloshing around in the capital markets, 1990 and then now. And you see that the world population has grown by 50%. The economic wealth of the world has grown by 250%, but the financial resources have grown by close to 400%. So there's a lot of money that is available for this purpose. Yeah, I'll let you study this thing now. So we can draw in private capital, the good news, sorry, but we have to still, of course, be careful to avoid monopolistic and exploitative arrangements. But we have at our disposal now several instruments, blended finance is one instrument that is being worked on, but also green and climate bonds and green funds are becoming available. And intermediate institutions, these are institutional organizations that operate between the water sector and the financial sector and have helped to get matches. For example, the Netherlands Water Bank is a very good example of this, they're active. In Flanders, Flanders, we have a very effective Aquafin. In the US, we have the US EPA that fulfills such a function. And recently in Kenya, the Kenya Water Facility in China, the Shampong Green Development Fund and others. There is a whole array of specialized vehicles for that. Now, these intermediate institutions will become more important in the developing context. Substantial research is required on the water management side to make sure that much can be made. In my view, this is an important area where IG can contribute. And if you want to know more, this book is published this week in which I work with colleagues from the OECD on this common room. So, in conclusion, the glass has stayed half full so far. The decades that come will bring, without doubt, many more questions. We should not be naive about that. The real question then is whether we can avoid the glass getting emptier in this country and in the more vulnerable places in the world. And to ensure that we need to combine our know-how and capacity with political will. Most of what I've narrated is the result of teamwork and not a lonesome initiative. And I am very grateful for the exciting opportunities this institute has offered me and the many professional and personal friendships it has brought. If anything, this institute will keep having to play a very important role and an even larger one than till now. Thank you very much. I would now like to invite Dr. Judith Kastresma to come to the stage. Good afternoon, everyone. We are Guy, we are Nicolette, and family and friends. My name is Judith Kastresma and I work in Delta. As a department head in Vloggers management. And I owe that also partly to my professor Guy. Back in 2008, Guy was looking for a PhD student for the new at that time new DUPC program on knowledge and capacity development. And we started talking. We started talking and after giving it careful thought, I decided that Guy's proposal was exactly the topic and the depth of knowledge that I was looking for. And so a big and also slightly scary adventure is for me, because of you, started for us. And one of the reasons why I was so convinced that this was a good decision was this incredible drive and passion for this topic. And that's very contagious. During my studies, Guy was very much involved, as you could see from the text that I had gone by. And he truly cared about my research project and that's really special because I also know other promovendi who have different experiences. So I was really lucky with that. And needless to say, I'm delighted and also a bit humbled to say a few words this afternoon. Guy, I have very fond memories of our work together in Delft and our trips to the OECD and to UNESCO in Paris. I remember one trip that we took that you had a broken arm, I think. And that someone pushed you also in the in the subway and it really hurt you and I had to put up your jacket because you couldn't pull up the zipper yourself. So it was quite interesting. And also our time in Indonesia together and the field trip with your World Bank colleagues and the many discussions that we had on our trip. It was a very steep learning curve for me and that's for sure. You have a way of giving feedback in a very gentle and kind manner and you are way too friendly to be strict even though you could have been stricter with me and my deadlines I think. And then also one day we actually took a day off. It was also quite special. And we went sailing with your wooden boat. It was a great afternoon with great food and drinks. I mean leaves out to the Flamish people. And good wind. And you said Judith, never buy a wooden boat. You know what happened? All my spare weekends I'm now working on my wooden boat. Be a bit on a more serious note. In the time we worked together you showed me three important points. One is, and I already mentioned it, you have a never ending drive to put knowledge and capacity building on the agenda time and time again. You also prove it today because it's so important and will always be important. In keeping the SDGs, adaptation to climate change, the list goes on. Knowledge and capacity to do that is at the basis. And I am impressed and humbled by that and inspired and it teaches me the importance of focus. And the second is your capability to create such a clear storyline also today in your work and also use knowledge from other fields that you always came to me with quotes from philosophy and interesting articles, but also very current news items that show the relevance of our work. And the third is that achieving genius is hard work. You said it many times to me in Dutch, you did 1% inspiration and 99% transpiration. So 1% inspiration and 90% perspiration. So sweat and tears. And yes there were also some tears in getting the done. This profession that you gave your heart to will stay very relevant and the job will never be done. It will stay complex and it's a glass half full, like you called it today. We will really miss you, but I think you gave many people the tools and the spirit to continue this important work. You will go off sailing a lot, I'm pretty sure. But I hope we will stay connected because we do need your advice on this topic. So I would like to wish you a great start of a new chapter in your life. Thank you very much. Thank you for your very nice words. I would now like to invite Dr. Bishwan, but Dr. Gia, maybe come to this microphone. Okay, thank you. That's okay. That's okay. Dr. Gia alerts, professors, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. Okay. I thought my voice is too loud, maybe that's why I'm moving. It's okay. It gives me immense pleasure to talk in this location. I'll be talking on behalf of our department. Gia and I have been working in the same department for quite some time. I see that Ian Lajendek, certainly I didn't know that you were here. So Ian hired me in our former department called Hydro-Influence and Knowledge Management. We used to call it Hickam. And since then we were associated in Hickam and further we moved to the new department where we marched with water management and water governance. And that time actually we were sitting next to each other and Judith was sitting opposite us for some time. And then we moved again and formed our new department which is called again a difficult name. We always pick up difficult names for departments. Hydro-Influence and socio-technical innovation history. The easy name is history. Now unfortunately I have not been, I have not worked with Guy on any project but who knows. Maybe when you are not sailing or repairing your wooden boats maybe in the future we'll be working together. And when I talk to water professionals across the world and some of them were also today wasting IHE and it gives me the impression that how well known IHE is for every corner of the world. And it's quite widely recognized as a global center for water knowledge that gives me enormous pride as well. Some of the people, many, many people who have contributed to building this image and I have to say Guy you are one of them so we are very thankful to you and proud of you for building this image for IHE. It's not an easy task for contributing to solving global water challenges for more than 30 years. I thought 30 years but you say it almost 50 years so it's much more than what I thought actually. But you are becoming or you have become our emeritus professor so we are not leaving you or you are not leaving us. So once again if you're not sailing we can we can actually use your immense knowledge and wisdom in our work. And I hope these opportunities will be coming in the days and maybe I'll also be fortunate to work with you. And then I think that this last about 50 years you have been working you have been busy with your karma. You know I'm from India that's why I'm raising this karma. So you have been busy with your karma so we can perhaps call you as a karma yogi. If you know the word yogi who is actually practicing yoga not the exercise the real yoga. So he's a yogi and you perhaps can be a karma yogi but in a true sense in the ancient philosophy is that a yogi wouldn't be waiting for rewards or would not be accepting rewards which is not really true in modern world. But now you are an emeritus professor so our relationship with you are not bounded by this give and take principles. So probably probably we can you can become a true karma yogi and we can benefit from your karma in the coming years. I wish you and your family all the very best in the coming years. Thank you very much. I now invite rector of ISU professor Eddie Morse. Thank you Anik and I'm just seeing if the size of the wooden shoes fit my feet because my background is for maagening and I must say I've been doing a lot of field work with wooden shoes and I can tell you they are quite comfortable. So ghee looking at your wooden shoes you have not been using them at all. I would like to and I was asked actually to thank ghee for what he has done for the institute. I think Bisha already did a very nice say first starter there but I only know ghee now for almost five years and I think in that time I also did no project together with ghee but I did a lot of other things together with him and I think what you did was saying and which I think you also picked up from ghee's presentation and way of presenting it's quite nice and fun to do something together with ghee and I remember you were referring to the last conference that you organized. You wrote a paper together with Judith by the way I think and I think that that was about capacity development and I think with that it also shows a little bit the overarching umbrella of what what IG is interested in is how can we develop capacity in the world but also I think the very broad approach that that ghee has in there and I would recommend to you if you're interested in that please read the paper from ghee and Judith because it's quite interesting. It also tells us a little bit about what has happened in Indonesia and his knowledge in there but what I also very much appreciate in there is that what they also do is that they connect that also with the economic side of it and I don't know if you have been engaged in negotiations like that but often when you start to and want to push something you're talking about euros or dollars in the end because that's where a lot of the decision makers in the end also would like to know what is the cost and what is the price and of course we should then tell them what the benefits are so I think that's that's a very very helpful approach and with ghee's background in the World Bank he was also an asset to the Institute IG because he was recognized also from the outside of somebody who could speak on behalf of both worlds the world of water but also the world of finance and I think that's still a very important issue so I must say I would like to join Bishwa in saying that maybe the emeritus part we should really cherish and ask you to engage with us and be there for the time to come because I think with the UN water conference that will take place next year in New York first time in 40 years so it's something you can't miss G I think that also in that conference these issues will again be on the table so I would very much appreciate your input and help for making sure that also that will become a success and I know that in this conference the issues that G just showed here in the slide so what commitments are there how well are we able to also fulfill these commitments and are we able to achieve the sustainable development goals are again on the table and so I think lessons learned from the past are very very welcome to show us the way forward I think G that I've now been talking a little bit about IG but I know that besides a wooden bolt there's another great hobby and I know that G has more the other one is rotary and I think that G in his connections also with other rotary members throughout the world he also managed actually to assure in a very gentle and soft way that there was a lot of support from the rotary and that I think we're now about 120 or 130 fellowships is that correct boss 150 here there we go so 150 fellowships from rotary and I think that also there G you played a very nice role in connecting IG with with the rotary so also thanks for that and I think and there I would like to stop but there's one other person here in the room that I would like to thank and that's that we were allowed to borrow you for a part of the time of every day and that's Nicolette so Nicolette I would like to thank you on behalf of all my colleagues and we have a very small token it's of course wet because we are a water institute but Nicolette may I give to you the symbolic exchange for the time now we're giving you the flowers but you also slowly bring him back to you I hope that you will allow us to borrow like to invite you also for reception downstairs and I hope that will also give you the opportunity not only congratulate me but I would be quite interested to hear also the stories from you on how you met me so I'm looking also forward to you that reception thank you very much would you please guys interesting Oh Oh Oh Oh