 Welcome back to the last day of the first annual symposium of the Water and Development Partnership Program. Over the last two days, we have heard several stories from the field, analysis of institutional environments, inward reflections and unconscious biases and struggles of engaging across social, political, economic, and cultural differences, language barriers, and unequal power dynamics. For those of you who have stayed with us through these sometimes difficult conversations, we thank you all for your time, energy, patience, unwillingness to learn and unwell. We began yesterday with discussing diversity for impact. We heard from three projects in different parts of the world, including India, Morocco, Algeria, Colombia, and Tanzania. The presenters shared experiences of employing different methods in their work, shaped by context specificities, partner needs, and their own capabilities, but also informed by their sometimes deferring interpretations of diversity and inclusion. In this session, we saw that though diversity and inclusion are increasingly seen as important values in development, the topic remains somewhat controversial and continues to inspire anxiety among water professionals. Pointing to the need for more dialogue about the intrinsic value of diversity beyond donor requirements. The second half of the day was about sustainability of impact. This session served to shift our understanding of both sustainability and impacts. Speakers raised questions about whether it is possible to capture and report impacts of projects through time when they lead to multiple spin-offs, new connections, and alliances between different actors who carry forward their efforts outside of the platforms provided by our projects. Today, we will begin with the last theme session of the symposium and arguably the most-awaited, FANEL, a panel for sharing failures and learnings. Our wish is to create space to be vulnerable and share difficult stories of the complex problems faced by water professionals. We applaud the speakers of the session beforehand, taking on the difficult task of explicitly discussing failures. In the afternoon, join us for our closing plenary to hear short reflections from drapitas of every session. For those of you who have not yet received this program symposium, my colleague Debora will share a link in the chat where you can download the program. Before we begin, a few points of housekeeping. We encourage you to use the chat freely and interact with each other through the presentations, but if you have a question for the speakers, please leave it in the question and answer feature of Zoom, which you will find at the lower toolbar in your Zoom screen. Please indicate who your question is for, and panelists, please feel free to type answers to the questions directed at you. At the end of the three presentations, there will be space for discussion and reflection. At this time, if you would like to speak, please raise your hand so that we can give you permission to unmute your mic. With this, I would like to begin our first session of the day called FANNEL by introducing our moderator and rapid job. The moderator for the session is Professor Mahret Swartowain. Mahret is an education engineer and social scientist who joined IHE DELT in 2014 to become its professor of water governance. She studies water allocation policies and practices focusing on questions of equity and justice. Her research centers around how institutions, technologies and markets shape water distributions and the different ways to make sense of or legitimize these. Using an interdisciplinary approach, she sees water allocations as the outcome of interactions between nature, technology and society. Thanks for joining us, Mahret. I hope Mahret is here. I'm here. I thought you were also going to... I thought you were also going to... Yes, I will now introduce the Muna. Muna has very graciously agreed to be a rapporteur for our session, though the program says that it would be clear for long. Unfortunately, Claire is not able to join us at this moment. Thank you, Muna. Muna is an action researcher with a background in critical political ecology. Her work aims to understand environmental and water governance through decolonial and critical lenses, focusing particularly on Palestine and the occupied Golan Heights. Muna is currently a fellow in environment at the Geography and Environment Department at LSE. She has been the senior research associate at the Lancaster Environment Center, where she worked on enhancing joint learning on the project transformations to the groundwork with Christina Bellino. Thank you, Muna, for joining us, and I will now pass the mic to Mahret. Thank you, Ayn, and I'm so happy to be here today with all of you, and a big surprise to find myself here with my respected colleague, Muna. So very happy to do this together. I love the title of this panel. I've never heard the name, and immediately the title itself, to me, provokes many questions, questions about what it means for a project to either succeed or fail. And I think the raising of these questions probably is precisely what this fennel is about. And I think as one of my colleagues will explain later, if we look at projects of collaboration as centering around joint learning, rather than just about producing certain outcomes or impacts, this joint learning, of course, if we see it, and in that way, that immediately brings a re-appreciation of the importance of cultivating relations and creating communities, engaging in always situated and embodied relation, making them is not just a precondition for producing measurable impacts, but itself becomes an important outcome or result of projects. And in the process of creating these relations, what it means for a project to either fail or succeed itself becomes redefined, I think, and that itself is part of the process. It's something interesting because it's not a way that many of us are used to think about projects. It means that we need to give more emphasis to creating and maintaining rapport with partners from other disciplinary or geographical backgrounds, but also with specific watery context. But how to account for and measure this? Relation making, community making is not about generalizing and commensurating, but it's first and foremost about respectfully dealing with difference. It's about cultivating the ability to be affected by or touched by the other. Relating comes with, and it's about feelings, passions, emotions of excitement, attraction, joy, frustration or irritation, shame, fear, anxiety, as we noticed yesterday. And those emotions are not normally given much prominence when talking about reporting or explaining what a development is about. And finally, building relations with people and contexts, it requires patience and time. It demands, I think, a slowing down, a realization that investing in relations is an ongoing effort beyond project time spans. So I think the failure actually, or calling this a fennel, actually is an invitation to think differently about what projects are about and about what they should do. So I'm very much looking forward to listening to the different presentations. And the first person, two persons who will present are Vim, my esteemed and dear colleagues, Vim Duven and Jelce Kamering. And Jelce is the current coordinator of the Water Development Partnership Program. She is also an interdisciplinary scholar who engages with critical social science theory to understand how injustices become manifest and how they can be challenged in and around water and agriculture. Vim is the previous coordinator of the Water Development Partnership Program when it was still called DUPC. He has been working at IHE since 1997 already for so for a long time. He has a background in urban and regional planning and is associate professor in integrated river basin management. He is involved in training and education and in various partnership projects. Before mainly in Asia and more recently in Iraq and in small island development states. So Vim and Jelce, I'm very curious to learn what you have to say and what your reflections are about thinking differently about impact or about failure and impact of the kind of programs and projects that you are coordinating. The floor is yours. Thank you, Magheed, for a nice introduction. I will first show my PowerPoint. Can you see my PowerPoint? Yes, I mean, yeah. Great. Yeah, it's really a pleasure to be part of this panel and session. I fully agree with Magheed. It's a very interesting topic. I look forward to listening to the different presentations and then experiences of projects. And it's also very nice to be able to present some of the reflections of the program, from program level. And so I will start and then Jelce will take over. Yeah, as you can see, the Water and Development Partnership Program is a program that actually started already in 2008. It's a long-term collaboration with Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We mainly focus on working in partnerships with global South partners on water and development issues in those countries. As you can see from this figure, we started already in 2008, and there were three phases. So the first phase was actually, I think, a very important phase to develop a number of partnerships around education training and capacity strengthening. And many of the partners we worked with and we started working with in those days are still key partners of the Institute. Then I took over phase two, which actually focused more on societal impact, different strategies to help achieve societal impact with a strong focus on local ownership, more user-centered, et cetera. So this was also, I think, a new kind of focus of the program and also based on what we learned from the first phase. Then Jelje and her team, they took over since a few years in the third phase of the program, which takes this all a step further and actually aims to support transformations to more inclusive and sustainable water practices. Now, we talk, Jelje and myself, we will talk about two topics. One is our interesting, one is about changing partnerships and the other topic where I will talk about, also a bit from a phase two perspective, and then Jelje will talk about joint learning. So changing partnerships, if you look at the development of the Water and Development Partnership since 2008, in the beginning we focused mainly on more fixed formal partnerships with a selected group of long-term partners. Since phase two, actually, we thought it's good to also open up this and to try to have more diverse partnerships and also more initiatives from the Global South. And we did this through open calls for proposals. So the figures show some of the results. So on the left-hand side, you see the origin of the project leaders in the phase two projects, and there you see that about 23 out of the 111 projects are led by partners from the Global South. And in the third phase of the program, this is already 50%. In the middle, we also encouraged more prominent roles for female researchers. So as you can see here, actually about half of the projects are led by female researchers. And I think it's quite the same in the third phase. On the right-hand side, you see the diversity in project partners. Initially, in the first phase, there was a stronger focus on knowledge institutions. We tried to open up, and now you see that there is also a good engagement of partners from civil society, government, and also private sector. And in the third phase, there is also a strong focus on engaging more with social scientists as well as part of these knowledge institutions. Well, then I come to the phase two failures to learn from. It's always a bit difficult to talk about failures, but we came up with, I discussed it also with Ellen and with the team, and we came up with a number of failures or areas to improve on. One is more at the project level, identification and implementation of projects. We understand that these goals are competitive. So, I mean, a strong proposal has a higher chance and also a strong written proposal has a higher chance of selection than other proposals. And we also realized that this can lead to inequities in funding possibilities. At the beginning, we had kind of a writing workshop to address this, but actually to be honest, then later on in the program, we have not paid enough attention to this, I think, and I think it's a very important point. The other point is inter- and trans-disciplinarity, which we also try to encourage very much. I think we were quite successful in this, but at the same time, you can also say that, yeah, the practice, we all know that the practice of inter-trans-disciplinarity is not easy, so it would be great if we could learn from the phase two experiences. Also often mentioned by projects is the management load and many partners also in the global south not always have the support systems in place. The second aspect is the learning between projects, and here's also some two quotes from the reports of the projects that we got from projects. In the beginning, we tried to pay quite some attention to learning between projects, but we also have to be honest because from a program perspective, it takes time. We also did not have all the capacity. COVID also played an important role, the COVID pandemic, so actually in the end, looking back, I think that we could have done much more in sharing experiences and insights and knowledge between the projects. Also beyond, I think it's very important. If I look back, then I think that we could have done more by involving other organizations, embassies, local governments, international donors, but also related programs. We did that, but I think to make the programs stronger and more impactful, there is room for improvement. The third point is the involvement in the future of the projects. That's something that comes back once in a while also in the reports of the projects. It's an important point, I think. It also relates to the fact that we are more project-based now through these calls. The question is also a bit, is the responsibility of the program, is the responsibility of the projects? I think it's a joint responsibility. I think at the program level, we could do more to connect people and to organize sessions to discuss how can you indeed maintain interest and sustainability after project completion. So to discuss it amongst the projects and to learn from that. This joint learning actually relates also to the presentation of Jelci. So I hand over to Jelci. Okay, thanks very much, Wim. Indeed, based on the experience during Phase 2, we have embedded the joint learning from the beginning very strongly in the objectives and the structure of Phase 3 of the program. This to avoid fragmentation and isolation by encouraging knowledge sharing between the projects amongst others by organizing regularly thematic seminars that brings together different project teams, but also to facilitate interactions and joint learning between them. This explicit, I think you can press the next button. Thank you, Wim. This explicit emphasis on learning is also driven by the stronger need to acknowledge that water problems are inherently complex, multifaceted and context-specific. Often the problem itself is not fully known or perhaps not even knowable and for whom this is actually a problem or according to whom. Therefore, creating solutions hinges on in-depth analysis and experimentation, this learning from what works and what doesn't work, the failures. This also goes hand in hand with acknowledging that we here at IHC do not possess all knowledge on water to be able to strengthen capacities elsewhere, but that actually we have a lot to learn here at IHC from our partners and this also focus more strongly on our own capacity. It forces us to position ourselves more explicitly because the way we understand problems and this also the solutions we propose is shaped by our own perspective, experiences and understandings of life. Which diagnosis of a problem and which solutions therefore are proposed are favored or are favored depends on power, interest and of course political context as well as broader views on how we understand what development is. Realizing this, we find it important as program to embrace different ways to understand approach and solve problems as eventually this will lead to more meaningful, fair and sustainable outcomes. To generally embrace this adversity we need to redress colonial legacies and actively create space for underrepresented groups and voices in the water sector such as women, people of color and lower economic classes and castes. Ultimately this means that we need to be modest in what we can achieve and nurture humbleness in our attempts to make impacts with our projects and programs. This is a point that was also raised yesterday in a presentation by Elisabeth from iGRAC in the session on sustainability. Next slide, please. Wim? Yes. This new approach of foregrounding joint learning however also has its own pitfalls and things we are still struggling with. For instance, the paradox that learning is a privilege for those who do not face immediate needs. Yet learning is also needed for more meaningful and lasting impacts. So how to balance the learning with producing concrete outputs and outcomes making perhaps small incremental yet tangible impacts for those most in need. Another issue is that we as water professionals often feel very vulnerable to acknowledge that we do not know everything that we do not have answers or solutions for specific problems. As a program we try to create safe spaces to open up and reflect on what we do not yet know or what does not go well. But we notice that not everyone feels comfortable to talk about this especially not with us as program management because of course we also decide on how funding is allocated. Moreover, learning and reflecting needs another pace and mindset which is often difficult to achieve in our busy lives. So how to slow down? Just reserving budget for joint learning in projects and organizing seminars to stimulate learning is perhaps not enough. We also experience that genuine inter- and transdisciplinary learning remains challenging. How to value and include different wisdoms, perspectives and approaches. For sure, academic and disciplinary jargon is not very helpful in this process as it limits interactions with others and might reinforce hierarchies between scientific knowledge and other forms of knowing instead of bringing those closer together. So how to develop the common language in which all team members can share their insight and contribute to the conversations equally. Also as program management we struggle with this and academic jargon regularly slips into our communication. I hear my time is finished but I am going to ask for a little bit more time to end because I have two more issues that we are also struggling with. So another important issue as a program is how to deal with the persistent discriminative hierarchies in society in relation to gender race and other forms of social differentiation. We managed to have very talented people of color and women in lead positions of our projects by amongst others setting very strict budget criteria. Yet we know that this is not enough. Several of these project leaders still experience intolerance ranging from inappropriate jokes to actively undermining their position. So how can we as a program management support them better? How can we protect them against such behaviors? Or how can we nurture inclusive working cultures and strengthen allyship to jointly address such injustices? And last we are still trying to make the monitoring of our program and projects more meaningful for stimulating learning. Like many development aid programs monitoring and evaluation is mainly done based on numerical indicators and tangible outputs. Yet this only captures part of the process and the progress made and offers very little space for reflection and appreciating processes of learning. We try to capture stories of change that allow for more depth, more nuance, more subtle changes. These stories foreground processes of learning and reflecting on impact pathways. Yet identifying these stories and documenting them is not an easy straightforward task. And in our rush to meet our own reporting deadlines we tend to fall back on those numerical indicators and outputs set for the program. So even though we feel we are moving in the right direction it does not go without constant adjustment but constant reflection and learning on our side, especially from what did not work out as we had hoped. So some of the issues that Wim and I mentioned have already been mentioned in the previous sessions of this symposium and we continue to look forward to continue to discuss this with you in this session, but also of course beyond. Thank you very much. Back to Margejt. Thank you Jelci and Wim it's fascinating to get an insight glimpse into the two faces of the Water Development Partnership program. I'm also curious to know a bit more how the two of you look at each other. So Jelci, did the improvements or the changes that you made to the program when taking over from Wim was that your response to some of the failures that Wim identified? Yeah, I think I mean I have learned a lot from Wim and I'm still learning a lot from Wim actually from his view on the program and from his experiences so indeed some of the things that we decided to take forward in this new third phase joint learning for instance but also indeed for the diversifying partnerships including more social sciences and more NGOs civil society organizations comes from also reflections we did together with Wim and from the lessons that they have learned in the evaluations they have done and I think Wim and I look quite differently at the program but therefore I think it's also very nice that we have the faces run in parallel because we I think on both sides there are things to improve and things to learn from so I think it's actually a very nice collaboration and a very nice tool to jointly do this so I also feel it's our joint program and I don't think so much in faces but more like how we together try to move forward So the learning is not just joint but it's also how can I say this it's also incremental it happens through time so Wim anything you would like to add to that? No, I agree we have regular sessions and we discuss things and we have our own focus indeed and on the program but I think the 80% you know is similar so the basic idea of working in partnership and global south and with partners and looking at local demand user centered activities trying to facilitate impact and also adjusting the program to address the needs which is sometimes indeed very challenging. Those are things that we have been discussing indeed and I remember at the beginning the start of the writing of phase 3 proposal we had a nice session together also with the team members to indeed look at what were the successes but also the failures or things for improvement so I think indeed that's a very nice collaboration. I see in the I've read all the questions in Q&A most of them are questions I think we will get back to after all the presentations but I can already see that they will revolve around two themes. One is how to best monitor joint learning or whether joint learning is happening or not and how to report on this question that Yelchi also raised and the other question that I see emerging from the Q&A is the question around how to navigate the intrinsic structural inequalities that continue to be there and that are also intrinsic to the very water development and partnership program with the funding coming from a particular Dutch place so in a way the direction of the funding seems is working against the desire to give more space for others to steer the direction and nature of the project. These are I think two important questions that I already see are popping up in the Q&A so let's keep these in the back of our mind. We will get back to those after the following presentations and let's move on to the next presentation I'm really looking forward to. The presentation is about projects in water resource development projects in post-war Iraq by Nadia Pausi who works at the Marine Science Center at the University of Basra in Iraq and Nadia research interests have been in the Iraqi marshes and the coastal area of the northern Arabian Gulf and the vulnerability of the already stressed environment to climate change, water shortage impact on this environment and their effects on the region's indigenous people, the so-called marsh Arabs. Nadia the floor is all yours. Are you there? I don't see Nadia. Ah yeah, there you are. Yes, hi. Hello, hi everyone. Thank you very much for the invitation and for the interesting sessions. Talking about failure is really challenging and once I talked to Yeltsia and said everyone is afraid of saying that we failed a project but I think we need actually very important. I feel that we need to discuss it. I will tell you my story and why coming from a personal experience as you said I worked in Iraq and I worked free and post war situations in Iraq and I saw this happening and I always tried to emphasize how to move the project forward and leave a legacy, a positive legacy. This is most of the time. I'm sorry to say that it's not happening. So let's start with my story. So I so as you said I am from Iraq and I'm focusing my work on this area of the marches of southern Iraq. You may know or may not many of you might not know that Iraq depends on two rivers that are mainly coming from outside Iraq mostly from Turkey and some from Iran and those rivers flow through Iraq from north to south for millennia and before the 70s and 60s of the last century Iraq was faced with flooding from the challenge, the main challenge for those two rivers where the flooding that happened through the spring season. After or early 70s the water started to get less and less that entering those two rivers. The river started to dry because of the you know blocking of the water up in the north because of the dams in mostly in Turkey and then of course in Syria. Adding up to that is the changing of the climate or reducing of the rain on the snowfall up in the north of the country that reduced the flow of the water. So Iraq started to face a longer period of droughts, less rain of course the marsh area which is here in the south of Iraq started to dry up. The other challenge that faced this area also adding up to the reduced amount of water is the war in the 80s between Iraq and Iran. That is impacted the marsh, the whole marsh area because the government started to dry this land as you see it's on the border of Iran here so they dry this land to have access you know to ease up the war situation. And that started the diverting of water coming to the rivers and the drying of the land adding up to that is the exploration of oil. This area is rich, very rich in oil and the drying is happening also. So everything work against this environment, the climate change, the war, the drying of this area. So this situation you see this is the marshes before the 70s and during the early 70s it's a green lush with lots of water. However and this is the women participating actively in the life of the marshes. While after the 80s when the Iraq Iran war which continued for eight years this is after the drying adding up to the first and second Gulf Wars after the invasion of Kuwait and the climate change diversion of water reduced from the north that is this situation in the marshes now and continue to get worse and worse the drought period is getting longer and longer temperature is really high so evaporation is very very high. So as you see almost a dry, almost a dry land. So this is the situation now now to 2003 2003 in Iraq life is a turning point because of the changing of the previous regime to a new regime supposed to be a democratic elected government and the international community started to heavily participate in the development because for more than 30 years Iraq was cut off the world no development completely embargoed infrastructure is completely destroyed because of the first and second Gulf Wars international organizations started to come to Iraq to find the project and specifically I'm going to talk about my experience working on a project to revive the marshes as well as providing water for the people who try to come back to this dry land so to encourage them to come back the government and the international organizations and the funders, different countries most millions were put into projects through UN and through US European Japan you know most of Nadia you're suddenly muted, can you unmute yourself yes, no okay, yes so most of these projects came Nadia, can you re-share your presentation, we lost your presentation I think you disconnected for a few seconds hopefully I'll try to do that again story about that I can find my if we need to do it let us know okay I'm trying to to share again do you see it now no, not yet okay can you please do because it seems that I can't do it from here I don't know, I think it's the next internet is very slow now my colleague aimed to share your presentation I'm really sorry about that this happens so have a little patience with us too also Nadia your presentation is coming up Ayn is searching for it now and ready to share her screen there it goes okay you can okay more let's try next please okay so please go back one slide okay so I will leave all the project and focus on one example that bringing technology to this area suddenly introducing it without prior knowledge without support and spending all this fund on a project it seems really disappointing and disappointing to the people specifically so as you see here we see the trying to extract water from a river very small river in close to this solar system and clean it and then distribute it to the neighbour area and this kind of solar system distributed in different places around a relatively small area not the whole marsh area but relatively small area and people were very excited about seeing this something new to them and they started to receive water from that can we go to the second slide please the issue is after I'm getting short so we can just finish as possible after the organisation that provided this system of course the funding finished and the project had to finish also so they left but the project stayed as it is without support no maintenance people who are operating and no commitment from the government itself to maintain this project and the people what happened the people couldn't use it it's a standing there but they couldn't use it so they are going back to buy water normally so can we go to the last slide please thank you so what went wrong with this just one example and compare it to the wider number of funded projects that happens in this area mostly that the project goal wasn't really fully implemented and the stakeholders especially the people from around the area were not involved they were not you know brought to the discussions about their needs how to implement what they need also and also the discussion with the government should have taken place before the completion of the project so the project should be handed to the government or to local government and have a commitment from them to continue the operation of these systems so I will refer you to yesterday's Peter and today is also discussion that how to maintain such a project that have been spent a lot of money into putting such a project but it seems that they are just not working so this is my just one example of the idea that such a wonderful project that supposed to be successful is just just stop and it's just look like a monument in the middle of this dry area thank you thank you very much Nadia for a fascinating presentation and adding to your conclusion it also seems that your your experience of this project it also shows that sometimes projects are just too small and too powerless to really change the larger processes that are happening because in this area as you presented there is upstream dams it's a post war area there is climate change and there is the exploration of oil and of course a small project that aims to supply a bit of water can do very little to transform these larger processes which is in itself a huge challenge and something that is also about it also questions what projects can do and how to think about impact so thanks a lot I don't know whether there are smaller questions that people asked in the I did I think there's one smaller question do you think that the economic situation of local communities is more important than other factors I don't know whether that maybe that's a big question it's not too small yeah the issue I think with the economic situation those people used to be so independent and rich and the richness of the surrounding environment they were almost independent they had their fish from the water from the marshes itself they had the buffaloes they sell fish in the market they sell their produce from the buffaloes and the handicraft that I show in the in one of the slides but since the dryness of the area became so dependent on handouts from the government from local NGOs and international NGOs and this dependency made them hopeless I felt and the issue that international organization came with the prior decision of what they do how do they help them they didn't ask them enough they didn't give them enough chance to talk about their needs and how they these needs are satisfied so this is one of the issues that I feel that we need to discuss more international organizations come with experience from all over the world but everything is specific to specific places I had a discussion with UN people they come from Africa the experience that they have in Africa is different because of the different culture in Middle East in general and this area specifically we are as people from Iraq feel that it is different culture for us to understand it is hard enough for a person to come from outside so as all rightly you said we need longer time but also one of the things that actually I need to highlight following of programs you spend a lot of money in 3-4 years millions of dollars spent in a project that has a timeline after that everything is finished you pack the donor or the funder pack and go leave it to people there and I saw with all my work that most of these projects just disappear disintegrate and this is a pity it's painful to watch all this effort just go like that thank you Naniya it's a very depressing message actually and it's also it needs to be told but of course it's also not a very unusual message and I think let's it's something all of us are part of we are part of these dynamics even though we try to change them so I think we need to really it's a very important to think about this and I think you already point to some directions of doing things differently work with local communities embed projects in existing government institutions and organizations but I think there's much more to say about it and I want to create a small how do I say it a small sign based on my role with your formulation of everything specific is specific in specific places I think that is also a very valuable lesson that we all need to take to heart I'm sure your presentation has raised many more questions that we will try to address after the next presentations so thanks a lot Nadia a virtual applause for you it was very interesting and instructive to listen to you thank you our next presentation is by Adele Yassin from the Palestinian Water Authority Adele is the director of wastewater planning at the department of the Palestinian Water Authority and the project lead of master plan Wadi Zomer Adele first of all I cannot introduce you without saying something about how all of us feel deeply concerned about what is happening in Palestine and I have a lot of respect for you being here and in spite of everything that's going on having agreed to give this presentation I'm sure we will listen with extra attentiveness because of it the floor is all yours thank you Margaret again thank you for inviting me to present our project that is funded through the UBCA3 it is a joint project between some local partners and I chief from another land so I will start sharing my screen in case the internet is disconnected or something have been Peter van der Steen with you he can also back up me so that no risk that my presentation will be like not completed so I will start showing my screen our project is mainly tackling industrial wastewater in a stream that is transboundary between Palestine and Israel and it is from the title of this project you can see that it is the main objective of this project is like to make a master plan that overall vision of our project is to make a inclusive master plan for industrial wastewater management which is not very industrious it is limited with 3 to 4 type of industries mainly waste which is almost seasonal pollution slaughterhouses and also stone cuttings this is the main three harmful industries that it is almost like produced to make the wastewater quality is almost either medium to strong so it is not normal domestic wastewater while the overall objective of our project which is second phase from previous phase that we did management plan is to protect shared water resources between the Palestinian and the Israelis in our study area the western aquifer is the biggest shared transboundary aquifer between the Israeli and it is mainly used for domestic bare bosses so that the aquifer is very important for both sides and protection of this aquifer from industrial wastewater pollution from the Palestinian side to the Israeli side or sometimes from the settlements that is located in the study area so this is very important to do that and also building the trust and as Margaret said now we are now living in a war between the Israeli and the Palestinian it is mainly now in Gaza but there is effect on the remaining Palestinians either in Jerusalem or in West Bank so that all the Palestinians now is free as are now under effect of the war that started on October 7th until now is continuous we hope this war should stop soon because it is now 40 days from starting and we hope this will be end and we keep again the negotiation for that two state solutions that always we hope that at the end we got our state independent and according to the UN resolutions 2423 now our output from our project is normal it is also database, publication, capacity strengthening, training public awareness, advocacy workshop but the most important output from this project is the master plan for Wadi Zomar and why this is very important in addition to the objective I mentioned that that we need we need to involve all the various stakeholders either governmental or non-government in the decision making in contributing to the vision that we started from November 2021 and we did a big workshop in March 2022 and the main objective of our master plan is to utilize the waste and to train it to a source because all our sampling analysis or our survey showed that there is no harmful waste water in that area so that we can we can after the treatment use it in different services like agriculture or industrial so that our main main one of the main objective master plan to utilize this non-conventional source in other industries and to make the clean production from the source mainly from the slaughter houses from the olive waste or from the stone cuttings all these waste would be transferred to a source like it to be used in industry or like clean production this is very important there is a schematic in the ground we could read it from the right to left because up to here up to here it is the border between the ocean and the israeli so from the right we can see the river which is Wadi Zomar which is our case study here we see the nebulus treatment plant that produce around 5 million cubic meter of treated highly treated effluent tertiary treatment and there is also a tranquilline for untreated sewage for nine communities in the Brazilian side that that collected and treated in the treatment plant that it is in the israeli side so we are dealing with treated effluent of around 5 million cubic meter that is a pass in an open channel and during through the channel there is some some pollution came from Anepta from another way so that it is reached the israeli side not as treated in the treatment plant in Nablus West so it is mixed with some pollution here and there and many industries that is located along the Wadi either olive mills, stone cuttings slaughterhouses tahina etc so that so this is this is this pollutions make like the treated effluent quality is deteriorated or making worse than what was in the source in the treatment plant and this is our ambitious timeline that we should make the Wadi Zomer clean and what we are now doing now it is we are making the design for the treatment plant in Tulkerem which is near the border it means that we should cut off all the effluent effluent from the balecino side to the israeli side and also we are now in the evaluation process for the truncline from Nablus treatment plant that is now in the open channel to the east direction it means that we should also cut off all the treated effluent that busing through Wadi Zomer so we have two alternatives either to convey the treated effluent from west to east to the Jordan river valley it means that all the pollution to the israeli side will be cut off and then the ground water resources will be protected or also we have another alternative that to make a pipeline from Nablus west to the israeli border that will collect all the treated effluent and will be protected from here or there pollution that come from scattered industries which came from tankers or from other pollution sources all these were studied in the first phase that we published about what is the source of pollution what is the possible intervention that we could do to protect the ground water resources and to keep it trust between both sides here is just an example about what we are doing in the sampling in the balecina side and we have four locations and then also in the israeli side there is also a sampling carried out by the minister of environment and natural resources that we always we use to share these data at the first phase and we try to make to see what is that joint intervention that we can do to protect the ground water resources along wadi zomar and to keep it by natural storm water and runoff of rainfall rather than to keep it with the raw sewage either in the open channel wadi zomar or in that in the tranquiline here is just a schematic diagram or outline about what we are doing in our project about how like we can achieve our objectives and here you see the indicators and monitoring that we are doing we in at the beginning we identified similar indicators that we should buy in our project to achieve and to make a ambitious goal to make wadi zomar clean from the raw sewage or even to protect the from being polluted again by scattered industries or raw sewage from tankers Adel yes you are reaching almost the end of the time for your presentation I don't know okay good yeah so this is the challenges now we are not under risk of failure so that we still in the track only what happened in October and November this year affected our plans because the most important things to make wastewater samples in October and November because of the season of olives that make the quality of wastewater almost strong that because mixing the Z bar or mixing the olive waste in the open channel make the quality bad and almost like not normal so what was the effect of the current situation which is usually the war that we didn't consider in our proposal we always used to have some clashes here or there and some aggression here or there but we didn't expect that the war will take for 40 days or we don't know what will end up so our what could be affected is that locations of our sampling is exactly on the border and now it is not accessible because it is now a military zone so that also due to the overall situation and the closure imposed by the Israeli army that the environmental inspectors and the police everyone they are not able to control the pollution from like industries and also the trust between the professionals in both sides the technical level maybe affected because of the overall situation on the high level like in the the geopolitics the geopolitics situation so our project is still our plans will be now adopted because we miss the most important season which is the olive season that is mainly in October and November so we will try to adopt our project activities and maybe we will ask for extension of years because we plan to have three consequence years 2023 2024 2025 that for three years now we miss 2023 and maybe we should go to extension of a year if we like found there is no other possible way to collect the data so this is my presentation I am ready for any question and apologize for being likely for maybe minute or two minutes but no we are now on the side thank you so much Adel and once again thank you for also taking the time for presenting in this seminar given very difficult circumstances that you also referred to everybody who has a question can put it in the Q&A I have looked at the questions that are in the Q&A you can also raise your hand and that makes it perhaps more lively so please go ahead and do that I just wanted to say seeing the time and the interest in this session if it is alright with all the panelists we would like to propose that we can have this session for an extra half an hour just so that we have more time for discussions okay how do people for me it's fine alright the panelists I don't know Adel Nadia are you fine with it and Wim and Yelce I'm fine with it yes okay great that means that we have time and to kick off the discussion I'm struck actually by the parallels between the presentation of Nadia and the presentation of Adel in the sense that you both present projects that happen in very difficult geopolitical circumstances and for me that raises the question how to deal with how to relate to these different geopolitical circumstances with a relatively small project as a project you can never really change these larger geopolitical circumstances yet you can also not avoid or deny or ignore them you have to navigate them and what I find interesting is Adel you show that I as a critical social scientist I have always I always make a plea for engineers to be explicit about their politics I think if I hear you correctly you say hmm perhaps in my situation the opposite is is much wiser if as a project we maintain a strictly technical strictly technical we claim to be strictly technical that allows for collaboration as soon as we we admit to being political we are gone so I find that interesting and it raises question about indeed what the panel is about about impact and the question is really about how projects navigate larger geopolitical context in Iraq it's the post-war war situation but of course the implications of the war are still being felt Adel you're in the midst of a war situation and projects are have to navigate that how to do it I think I think maybe fish one I don't know whether I pronounce your name right you asked a slightly similar question so maybe you want to to ask that question if you are there fish one not are you there or maybe is no longer here I you can unmute yourself now oh fish one is not possible to ask I can read his question and then you can maybe fish one but you please raise your hand and then yes you can now but fish one not says in the chat that it's not possible to ask I don't know why that is sorry the question fish one not asked in the q&a is most water interventions are ideological political not technical I would say ideological political as well as technical how do we factor in democracy and agency in interventions when it disturbs the elitist status quo I think that is an interesting question I don't know whether you want to react to that question Nadia or Adel yep I don't mind sorry I don't mind I think it is the three Iraq by the way is still unstable after I don't know how many years we are the situation is still unstable so the difficulty for international organization is working in this unstable communities unstable environment sometimes is risky risky environment is still hard but I would say and it's not I don't know how much is small for you you and put millions US put millions of dollars Japan put millions 5 million 6 millions for each project and especially for the for the Martians itself so you are saying Nadia actually the project is not small the project are normal this one specific this one specifically wasn't that big but in general the amount of funding that put into the Martians to revive the Martians is a huge but from the beginning since 2003 when they came to wanted to revive the whole area ambitiously we said as a local don't please and have deeper and more discussion about the whole situation because they gave I felt I don't know at least me and some of my group we say that we gave a false hope to people to come back they came back and with some water that we were lucky at that time that there was some water coming to the area and you know it was reflooded and everything is wonderful but we knew that we are going to face more difficulties in the future with Turkey and with the whole climate change situation we could have read this from a long time I mean we noticed that so we said we need to look at a project that focus on a specific area of the Martians rather than say we fund so that is that is the issue all the UN and the larger the bigger funders needed to listen and to go deeper into classification of priorities and the issues that need to be addressed before going and putting 1 million into water 2 million into resettlement I don't know 5 million into this part or putting a new project like you know what you say with the solar system so they combined all the effort together and worked on a specific area that can be maintained this is what we said you need to look at area that you can maintain water for a time long time a specific area rather than focusing wider on every part of the Martians this didn't happen and this is what we see now the millions just disappeared people come and go because they see there is water and they come and then no support no sustainability of this area so they leave again and they are angry and disappointed and they just fed up of talking to people really thank you Nania for clarifying and for again emphasizing the point the importance of real engagement and not just flying in and dumping money and doing the replicating the same solutions that are done everywhere but taking into account the specifics of the context and not just the specifics of the content and focusing but also taking into account and realizing how what is happening in the Martians is partly shaped by what is happening upstream with the dams in Turkey thank you very much Nania Adele do you also want to react to this? Yes I will answer your question about why we should like the professional is still like co-buried to exchange data and also like to protect it from evolution the fact that the Israeli is deducting around 1 million euro every year from this stream to treat the wastewater from the Brazilian side either treated from Nablus or Rozi which are from downstream to Kerem area so in total we are being every year around 5 million euros so we will not we can't stop that because every time we are cleaning the wadi we are treating our waste we are reducing the industrial waste so that means that we should minimize the deduction so that we are working with different channels mainly with the support from another land in the trilateral committee between the Brazilian and the Israeli that's supported by another land from the head all the time we are talking about how to reduce deduction how to reduce volutions how to create a good environmental environmental scheme to reduce the pollution because it affects both sides the aquifer is shared between both sides the deduction is taken from the Israeli is like huge so that all the time we are trying to minimize the pollution from our side not for like for free because we are interested to reduce deduction from our taxes that is taken by the Israeli again we have both mutual interest to keep this aquifer clean this catchment clean for the benefit of both sides and mainly for the Palestinian that we will try to reduce the deductions because for every year from those deductions we can build a project okay so that why to keep this every year is happening deduction every year every year and maybe you are aware that now the Israeli will build from their side a treatment that's approved by the Kinesis or the parliament with around 180 million which is equivalent to around 35 million dollar 60% of them will be deducted from WC and taxes hold by the Israelis so we are interested to have this mutual interest to clean up this wadi to protect the ground water resources from a side and also to stop deduction from the other side so we will keep we will keep doing all our efforts either from this our small project or because from our small project we highlighted for the decision makers and for the government that what is the importance of to have these intervention to making a treatment or to improve the quality of the wastewater from our side because at the end we should we should reduce the deduction that is very very huge compared to the quality of the water so with the small interventions from our project we can we can achieve our goals which is protecting the aquifers and also reducing the deduction so this is why I will answer from Andro Wamez question that why I introduced a lot about our project because we should know that it is a transboundary project there is conflict between both sides it is not normal and not a Liberian Straitism we are under fubation and we are not like any other Liberian countries that there is every declaration or that because as you know that today we are in a war we are facing problems here and there so that politically we are in not in a stable area so that also the intervention is very important because we should keep our rights to stop the deduction from our money that is sold by the side so this is very important the project where we continue that we will try to adopt our plans at least at the end to submit a master plan for our leaders for our screen makers that contain what intervention on the short and medium term to do at least to achieve our goals from this project again therefore you do BC3 for funding this project and again we are working now our team on the technical level we are working to collect data about everything only what we are now facing is the how that we like make the samples and how we can like make the meetings like that blend in November but our project is still going thank you Adil thank you very much it's very clear on the one hand you can not do it's very clear everybody has an interest in maintaining a clean aquifer and cleaning it up both Israeli and the Palestine side it's also very clear that collaboration is needed and it's very difficult in these war times and you also show or explain that even doing the minimal technical work now is becoming more complex because of the war so thank you for explaining all this and I wanted to give a small opportunity to Yelce and Wim to just react as because and relate it back to perhaps to their presentation yeah I'm I'm I realize like listening to the stories of Nadia and Adele and of course we are very aware of what is going on and we have more regular interactions but it's just emphasizes again and then I come in with an email can you please submit your progress report or why didn't you upload this output yet on our repository you know and I realize the circumstances you are working under it's so amazing and we are trying to do things in such complex difficult circumstances that are changing every day and unfortunately in some places are getting worse and worse so it's also for us as a program a very good reality check like yes of course we have things that we need to do to report and we have certain expectations but in the end it's about together really trying to think what makes sense in this particular place at this particular moment what is needed here and how can we help this team to succeed or to do the things they want to do and they think are most needed so yeah I'm just thank you very much again for sharing these stories because I yeah sometimes we also of course gets lost in our own objectives and our own time frame and our own deliverables that we need to do so we need to continue this kind of conversations and have very close relations with the partners anywhere in all the areas where we work but especially in the places where it is more challenging because together we need to find or we need to try to find pragmatic ways to work around and to keep going and to stay connected and to build partnerships and I can also imagine it creates tension in the project teams with different views, different understandings of what is going on and that's not always easy I just want to say we are here to think with you and to be pragmatic but thanks again for sharing both of you, your perspective it's very helpful for us thanks Jelci, Wim do you want to add anything or do we have your own thoughts perhaps no I think it shows that it's for a program like this it's really important to work with local partners, I mean like what was presented by Nandia that we go there and have the solution and then that's really not the way we like to do it so we work in partnership and it's about listening and trying to understand what are the problems and what can we do at project level but also at program level what are the possibilities and I think the other thing in relation to Jelci is that the program needs flexibility and I think we have flexibility and also in the second phase I think because there is more regions where there is instability and where we had projects finding it difficult to continue operations as they had in mind and then they adjust it and somehow we manage to keep the partnership and the collaboration going and in some cases not the example maybe is also the COVID pandemic you know and there also we tried at least to interact with projects to understand how can we still given this very difficult situation that we had a few years ago how can we still try to continue our collaboration so that's the flexibility a program like WDPP should offer and I think we do so I also encourage you to come to us and to discuss these things thank you very much Jelci and Wim and I think yes once again thanks Nadia and Adele we need these radically honest stories in a way we very much need them to learn and also to forge relations and connections because by opening up in this way I feel now as if I know both of you although I have never met you and I think that is also the benefit of a program like this and a symposium like this that by opening up we get to know each other we start to empathize and we start understanding things from different perspectives so thank you very much I would now like to invite Munna with to do the difficult task of providing some kind of wrapping up of this session so Munna please go ahead thank you Makhrit, Jelci, Wim Adele and Nadia and all those behind putting together this symposium and this session I'm really happy you'd like to be here and as I wanted to kind of bring another maybe radical and kind of provocative ideas and statements into what I've heard in this session it is about sharing failures and how can we learn from it but one thing that I kind of trying to wrap up what I've seen in terms of also the content but also the discussion that ensued around you know how do we assess our projects how do we actually engage with this failure, understand it to kind of seek behind it and I want to encourage everyone to look at it in a very critical and provocative way of kind of trying to understand kind of the hegemony the epistemic hegemony behind the realities we we work under you know as we water researchers, practitioners engineers, as project managers and as Jelsa said in the beginning like learning becomes a privilege that are the spaces we have today in these projects to carry out the work we do seems like it's hierarchical hierarchical and then we are coming together we wanting to provide solutions to communities that seem to be or are characterized to be lacking solutions you know so this idea coming from that perspective requires a lot of work of unlearning that we don't always have the solution and we don't always know everything like Jelsa you were saying in your presentation and then kind of yeah like the both case studies are really fascinating because we're talking about cases of belligerent type of material occupation, war, colonialism settler colonialism so we're talking about cases where we cannot really address water issues without really exposing and addressing you know the underlying reasons behind why we are in this situation today whether in terms of the failure of such projects and infrastructure to actually launch well and to be actually beneficial to the communities themselves so we have kind of the physical failure of these projects to actually achieve any reality like Nadia was mentioning about the marches like we have what you have shown Nadia this really beautiful intrinsic and really deep rooted connection of people to the marches there's traditional knowledge there's a women led role for a lot of these activities that used to take place in those marches we have seen such first knowledge traditional knowledge and learning that we can learn from but however we see that water and water governance in that in the marches and in our region has always taken a very technological approach all of that wealth of knowledge all of that you know richness has been completely ignored sidelined and what has been proposed has been very technological approaches like how can we actually make use and optimize the use of this really dying river dying culture and heritage by putting solar panels and so the solution becomes the problem in a way so I think these a lot of this is facing this is of course that you mentioned Nadia is not only regarding this project specifically but it's the approach that is problematic it's the approach that lack this insight into you know the richness and the really the richness of the traditional knowledge that exists in our region that we need to capitalize on we need to bring to life and this is how we actually engage in our communities in a meaningful forward-looking long-term approach that all our projects you know at the end this is what they want to achieve we aim at joint learning and we aim that you know having positive impact on water governance but also we aim to build that long-term relationship but these projects at the end fail to do so unfortunately because the objective has always been on the visual aspect the big projects and this is also reflected by external factors you know like you mentioned Nadia and Adel as well I'm going to come to Palestine in a bit but the idea that also our the government approach has also been technomanagerial has also been about large-scale infrastructure that will address water issues and has always treated communities as victims at best you know that we can capitalize on to actually bring this money bring these projects into materialization and also never really address communities as equal partners with really rich knowledge and expertise that they can bring into the picture so that has always been you know the big issue we see it and I would like to provoke it a bit with the Adel's intervention me myself being a very critical scholar around the issue of managerial apolitical approach which in itself also shows a bit of epistemic somehow hegemony over how water should be addressed how water issues should be addressed so the idea that there is hierarchy between how we intervene to solve a clearly technical issue you know we have wastewater streams running through a very contested place that but how do you do it how do you do you keep on talking about and exposing the underlying reasons behind these issues or do you try to address it in political and sorry in technomanagerial approach like Adel is actually showing us and explaining how this project is all about reaching this objective of transponder water management but I would like to actually talk about a lot of important political aspects we'll make these projects we'll never make these projects a success even if on a technomanagerial level they've managed to do what they do because what's happening in Palestine very similar to Iraq is there's idea of cooperation it seems to be a very benign approach to addressing environmental water issues but at the end a lot of projects that are based on this line of thinking end up being dressing up domination that Israel is exercising for Palestinians as a sort of positive positive approach that will lead to some sort of peace building and we've seen that this is not the case you know in Iraq and in Palestine other places around the world we've seen how millions and billions of dollars have been spent on water projects that haven't really addressed the underlying issue which is water injustice what we see in Gaza today is a clear manifestation of failure of the international community with to address political realities Gaza strip shouldn't be under siege for 16 years and those solutions that have been proposed by different international organizations in that strip of land in that species of land have been prescriptive have been ideas to kind of keep things afloat while the situation politically has been deteriorating very bad to the extent we see today so if we see the infrastructure that Israel has destroyed the water infrastructure was international projects like the WDPP and others that has been investing billions of dollars into those project only to be obliterated demolished by a very clear entity so here we see like how these project at the end of the day if they if they don't really work collaboratively and unequal threshold with communities to build resilient system to address their underlying conditions of water scarcity or water in equal access to resources or whatever the issue is so there has to be always a very deep engagement with the communities we work with and it can not only be kind of bringing these prescriptive type of approaches but kind of really doing a very very hard work of building trust and also making sure that we are actually acknowledging the underlying causes the colonial legacy and the current realities that external factors that affect this specific region but also making sure that people come out with more resilient solutions rather than now Gaza situation is really dire because Gaza has no clear community and regional focused solutions to water issues they are facing today because of the onslaught and the assault that's happening there so we have to understand that water in itself definitely is a source for collaboration and cooperation and for joint learning and knowledge sharing but it can also be weaponized firstly very much physically like we see today by occupation forces but it can also be weaponized in our minds thinking that water is only to be solved by technical and technological approaches never by coming back down to the river down to the waterway down to the sea that we are studying and really understanding its value its meaning to the communities we work with the legacies the memories and the cultural heritage that they bring that this water source brings to them the pride the joy you know so I think this is partly to take a message to take from from those places that seem to be so war torn seem to be in a desolate situation where we cannot get out but there are also places where water is a very interesting aspect of life that we as let's say external actors as collaborators need to come with humble humility and humbleness like what I spoke is speaking about and to ensure that we are actually working all together towards a more just world where water is centered around issues of justice rather than issues of addressing technological aspects and I think I'll stop here but I really enjoyed these sessions and the interventions of each and every one of you and I feel yeah there's a lot of room for thought this is important these are important conversations to have and failure does not even it's not in itself negative but it's actually meaning that there has been a lot of trials and the trials will get better and better as we do these projects and collaborate together so thank you all for your wisdom that you shared with us. Thank you Muna I was hoping that you would end and wrap up the session in this way there's no better person to do that so thank you very much and putting it very sharply and eloquently I don't know Ein if you want to close the session here because I'm just notified that there were some people waiting with their hands up that for some reason I could not see so deep apologies for that that was not my intention at all I think I only see some of the people on the screen that's probably the reason so Ein moderators we have one person with their hand raised still Victor Kana if you would still like very much to make a contribution we know that you have had your hand raised for a long time so you are I ask you to unmute if you would like to but if you would like to also join our closing plenary there would be still space for reflections from the audiences I now see that Peter van der Steen also has his hand raised Peter there's first Peter shall we first have Victor and then give you a chance to say something yeah can you hear me now yes yes Victor we can hear you thank you very much thank you Nadia I want to ask put this to Nadia it's a good project and I would like to know what are the contributions of the oil companies around the Mashi area I don't know whether they as part of their social responsibilities you know have contributed energy to water supply in that area because they are tapping from the economy resources of those areas and they need to also contribute to the welfare of the people not just by getting the resources they have there but to also give them clean water to drink because I believe there will be pollution through those exploration and exploration activities yeah can I secondly sorry thank you Victor for your question my proposal will be that Nadia answers the question in the Q&A because it slightly diverges from the conversation we were having on how the political and the technical are entangled or should be entangled or should be disentangled and I'm sure that Peter wants to respond to that question so Victor if you don't mind I'm not saying the question is not relevant because it's very relevant but I think just to keep the energy of the conversation I would like to give Peter the floor first thank you Margaret I listened carefully to Muna's contribution and indeed I think I'm also working in the Wadi Zoma project together with Abel as an external as an IT staff member and indeed the approach that Muna suggested I think we are indeed not following in the project if I understood you correctly you would like to put justice in the center and even though at the one end I like that very much I mean who could disagree with that justice is probably the most important thing in the world however in this project environment that wouldn't work at all in this project where I I cannot speak for Abel I only speak for myself I work with both Israelis and Palestinians and we are trying to step by step improve the situation and that I think Margaret mentioned that at the beginning of the session personal relations are very important there so the personal relations between some of the Israeli and Palestinian partners in the project or not even partners but stakeholders that are related somehow are very good and that can be a step I would say a stepping stone slowly slowly maybe also later to improve the relations between their organizations and then we build it up from the bottom from the personal relations to the institutions etc if I would follow Muna's approach and maybe I I make it a bit stronger maybe then you said but if I put justice on number one project is over both sides won't stop immediately and then your result is zero so that is I think why it would be better not to follow them I thank you Peter for raising that and I think it's actually the question that is perhaps at the heart of this whole conversation because I was thinking when also when Nadia was presenting I was thinking oh if one engages in these technical projects does it do these technical projects by just focusing on the technical and by pretending to be just technical do these projects not implicitly lend support to existing hierarchies and power asymmetries and then because but then the other side of the coin of course is I think what I clearly understood from Adele but I now also understand from you the only way at least according to both of you the only way to keep doing anything or to keep make to do any small step in Palestine is to to consciously almost pretend to be doing something that Muna calls techno managerial and of course being fully aware that by doing something techno managerial claiming that it's just techno managerial I'm sure that both you Adele and Peter you're fully aware that it's deeply political what you're doing but you decide to background the politics and to call it technical precisely because that is the way that you can do something political so it becomes very very difficult and I think it's an interesting conversation I don't know whether Muna or others perhaps still want to react but I think this is at least this is one of the questions that I think is at the heart of impact doing things technical and remaining seemingly neutral always seems easy but sometimes it's also necessary necessary if you want to do political or if you want because I'm sure Peter you want to and Adele you want to work on justice but indeed if you are open about it you may not even be able to do anything so I see the dilemma is there anyone who wants to further react to this or shall we just end with this question and I think it will remain a question and I will keep Nadia's motto in the back of my mind answering this question itself is always specific to the situation and to where we are there is no general answer I'm at least left with with a deep awareness of how important it is to openly and honestly discuss this we don't often do this we often have a tendency to either shy away from it because it's dangerous and it's sensitive or because we are not used to it we are used to discuss water and development in quantitative easily monitorable terms so thanks all the presenters thanks Muna for putting things in a sharp way and thanks Nadia and Adel for very insightful and honest presentations thanks Jelce and Wim for doing the amazing job as project coordinators creating this safe space for people to engage with these questions and I think clearly we are only scratching the surface and only beginning the conversation so I hope that we can have more of this in the future thank you thank you to all the speakers and especially to Muna for doing the difficult job of summarizing this discussion we will now take a short 10 minute break and we will come back for the closing plenary where we will hear from raptors of all the previous sessions a short recap of what happened and see what can be the way forward for the water and development partnership program we won't close this session so you can stick around you can use the chat you can still ask and answer questions and we see you in 10 minutes