 Good day everybody and welcome back from the short break. We hope you're still with us or welcome to the closing plenary if you're just joining. Yeah, so as I just mentioned, this is the closing session, the final session of our first symposium. We think was great. We've learned a lot. We have seen great speakers. And yeah, we look forward to hear again from the reporters to bring everything together and from the coordinator of the Phase 3 program, Jelci Kemmering, to see what the program is going to do. So before I'm going to hand over to her some housekeeping. Feel free to use the chat to share thoughts, exchange contacts. However, if you have a question, please use the Q&A, which you can see at the bottom of your screen. You can also raise your hand if you would like to ask your question live. There is French translation. My colleague has just placed the instructions in French in the chat. Also, you can ask your question in French in the Q&A. We will then translate it for you. So as I just mentioned, there will be some time for the reporters to give us the summaries, their reflections of the past sessions. I will keep time, so to the reporters, if you hear about, you have one minute left. So I hope you can help us keeping time as we know that those sessions can all take more time than planned. And after that, there will be a presentation from Jelci Kemmering and some space for questions and answers. So without further ado, Jelci, can I give you the mic? Thank you so much, Nadine, and great to be back with all of you. So good to see so many of you online with us these three days. And we are very glad that we had heard so many interesting presentations, so many interesting stories from different parts of the world, from different projects, from different partners and colleagues. So we are very happy to close off this symposium in this last hour with us. As Nadine already mentioned, we will give all the reporters of the different sessions some time to share with us their key messages from each of the sessions that they attended. So that also those who did not manage to attend all sessions still get a little bit of a glimpse of what has been discussed. Unfortunately, one of our reporters, Murta, who was in the session on advocacy for impact, was not able to be with us today for personal reasons. So in this case, we decided to show the short clip, the recording of his summary synthesis of the session on advocacy and share that with you. Thanks very much, Peter, and thanks everyone for your very interesting presentations. It's a great honour to be able to wrap up this session, which leaves me with the challenge of how on earth to summarise such a stimulating and rich set of presentations in a few minutes. I just want to start with a quick anecdote. I used to be a researcher myself, used to be an academic, and then I made the move to civil society because I wanted to become more engaged in what I was researching a few years ago. So I now work in the realm of advocacy and making that switch I completely underestimated just how much expertise and knowledge is required to do advocacy properly. I'm still learning. So I know I have experienced this sort of issue from both sides of the spectrum that we've been discussing here. And I just want to quickly briefly refer and because of that, I want to also underscore just how important places like this are where where researchers can get together and discuss these types of issues because, you know, traditionally speaking, academics and researchers aren't really traditionally trained in the sort of dark arts of advocacy. So there's a lot of learning to be done there, a lot of challenges and a lot of experiences to be shared. So I'm really great that this event took place and that you're all brave enough and also to share your experiences. So we saw three very interesting presentations obviously started with the GWS sense presentation from Florence and Bessie in Turkana. And I really, I really, it was a very detailed water modeling research that was also linked to institutional engagement and community engagement. Now you really appreciate the centrality that you gave to the issue of inequality and tackling inequality and also establishing partnerships with the county. And it's great to hear that you were able to actually, that research was able to reach to policy changes at the county level. That's quite something. And then the next presentation after that was obviously the InfoNile project from from Leonard and Annika, very interesting stuff. I really like this type of transdisciplinary, which is what it is essentially collaborations between academics and journalists in this sense, which are not typically used to work together but actually kind of rely on each other, I'd say to reach the types of impacts that they really tend to be working towards. It also comes with all sorts of challenges and I really appreciate that you were reflected on those challenges, including the sort of, you know, the distrust that exists between between between journalists and also between scientists. This is something we I'm sure you could have talked for for a lot longer about how you how you dealt with these these types of challenges. And then after that we had the Wash Gender project from Emmanuel in Nigeria. Very interesting. Also, I mean, you know, I really appreciate that you were able to really share these types of challenges and experiences that you had when when trying to bring your your findings out into the media and then then bring it to the journalists and then suddenly you get caught up in the sort of this, you know, this is the dominoes falling over of journalists taking it going viral politicians taking it getting defensive account and out of being developed. All these types of dynamics that you don't really have control over, but it is kind of the scaring the messy political reality of advocacy so I really appreciate it. And that and I'm also glad to hear that you were ultimately able to bring people together with these processes of public consultation and engagements. So I mean, you know, just to just to wrap it all up, I just want to say this really emphasizes the importance of this type of this type of issue and the type of collaborations. The collaborations between scientists, journalists, also policymakers but also just to speak for from my own perspective civil society and grassroots groups and advocates. I really think there is a lot more to be gained by working together on these issues. Okay, so that was a video that we streamed from the wrapping up of the session on advocacy for impact by Merta. Luckily, live with us right now is Farana who was the reporter for the session on technologies for impact. And I also would like to ask her to give a short insights on the key messages that she picked up from that session. Farana, can you come on stage. Am I audible. Yes, you are loud and clear. I mean, for last few days, it was really intriguing and also different topics has been discussed. I was there for the technology for impact and for me, it was, I mean, we heard two different presentation. But we can understand there is a gap between expert and the people who are working on ground or the people whose problems are going to be solved or is going to be solved. So, so how these gap can be resolved or gap can be bridged that has been discussed with different approaches actually during this session, like how remote sensing data can be used for water management and how this can be translated to the community who will be using it directly. So, we need to constantly work with the people, both who are working there and also the technological expert, and I found it very important like the moderator asked the question, how the technical information is translated for the people, not for the experts, and also few different issues has been discussed, how community can be involved for developing the tool. Also, how can we make technology more accessible. How can we make the data more accessible. And at the same time, how data can be protected. We cannot use it for other purpose. And co creation is also very important also different approaches like citizen sciences has been discussed also. The translation of the technology or the technical knowledge into the ground, different tools has been discussed like how you will pass it to the people like infographics or questionnaire or other things like that. So, it was really interesting I mean more discussions like these are needed. It has been previously like scientists do their jobs, they decided what should be done. Sometimes they don't consider it, what is going on in the ground. Different methods have been discussed different approaches has been discussed how this tool can be developed by involving community from the beginning of the task. So, this was really important for me I mean these all are the things that I wanted to share. So, thank you so much for another for this nice summary of the session on technology for impact. So for the session on diversity for impact we have both the moderator as well as the rubber tier here because it was both the same person. Okay, you are here with us. We are very keen to hear your reflections on your own the session and your takeaway messages or the key points that you picked up from the session. Thank you. Thank you so much. Can you hear me. Yeah. Yes, you are. Yeah, I want to just begin because I will both moderate as well as repertoire. I first of all have to apologize for the misunderstandings that I caused in terms of timing first of all because I allowed the first speaker to go really over time without controlling it. The result was extremely stressed by the second speaker and interrupted her, even though she was ending. So, all of it did lead to some heart aches, including disappointment on my side definitely. So apologies. But I thought that the three projects I learned a lot from them. One of them was completed and I did have access also to a paper that was written on that project, which is the first one the farming in times of crisis. It was not only informed, it was incredibly, what shall I say it was, it really eliminated diverse forms of knowledge, diverse from diverse lives under in a global critical situation, how people found the ways their ways of earning some form of living, increasing their bargaining power, and the groups that were able to do this of course, in both in India and Morocco, the access to women marginalized voices, marginalized farmers was very good. And as a result, we have learned a lot about their strategies for survival in this very, very difficult time. But we also learned about the, those growing dates in on the OS is how, and, and young men coming together actually, and to raise their and cultural workers, raise their wages, etc. In Morocco and in Algeria. So, all in all, we heard from different kinds of people. The diversity of voices was extraordinary. And I'm, I have to be, I'm very happy that I was able to listen to all of this. The presentation was extremely of a project and a project situation which is extremely, extremely interesting and happening the world over the what they call the amphibious project I like that actually the amphibious project, because it's all about the water based livelihoods and the urban development occurring because of these port cities coming up and bigger. And of course there's climate change. And this is all happening in Colombia which anyway has been. Yeah, has had has been in conditions of civil war for almost 40 years. And it's happening primarily to these communities, at least on the Caribbean side to black populations, Afro Caribbean people, Afro Colombian people. So you can see it's really the very marginalized whose lives are that livelihoods are threatened. And we learned from because it's not, it's just right in the beginning, we learned how the project is aiming to include the voices of those who mostly were unheard. So it's that that was the second the third one had more difficulty with, which was a sustainable waterpans, although the intention was clear. That is to build a building managing and monitoring waterpans with local communities in sustainably inclusive ways. The intention was clear but I was not actually convinced by the project design as you know kind of and diversity being intrinsic to it, but from the, from the comments we saw. Apparently, those who are listening to this presentation found it very interesting and learned a lot from it. So these were the three subjects we had. Unfortunately, there were not very many questions from the audience that could be dealt with in the plenary. So we did pick up on issues raised on diversity. Am I going over time please tell me. Okay, but one minute I just want to say that I think we arrived at the two questions that I didn't want to answer. Well, I chose not to address till the end. And the sense of his address to all three presenters, none of them particularly took it up. But it was about this anxiety around inclusion and diversity, treating diversity as always a zero sum game. And it was about every winners and losers. As if, you know, it's a it's a one pie. And if you share it around the those already have will get less. So it's the understanding of diversity obviously as sameness establishing sameness, rather than addressing an inequality is is. Broadly that is it's most people take it like that. So I think that that that was also an issue in the way people reacted and responded with questions. Thank you very much. It was very, very helpful. I learned a lot. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. My three and I must also apologize from our side, we are still learning how to facilitate and how to organize this seminar so some of the stress you experienced during your session was of course also from our site and learning curve. And I think still the session was very interesting and I'm very nicely facilitated so thank you very much for your reflections on the session and sharing your insight later on we also still have some follow up questions but I would like to first give the floor. To the next speaker in the meantime I would like to ask the audience if you have any particular questions already or any main key messages that you picked up from the last three days. Please feel free to enter them into the Q&A session so that later on we can also have a look at that and try to answer some of the questions and some of the remarks from the audience. Before if you would prefer to speak up please raise your hands and then we will try to have the technology in place to allow you to speak as well. But before we go to the questions, I would like to ask Lapo to join us as a reporter on the session on sustainability for impact. So also Lapo from your side, we would love to hear your views and your, your, yeah, the key messages or the key issues you picked up from the session that you attended. I see your cameras going on, still a bit dark. Checking here with the technical. Yes, she has access, she should have access. Lapo. Hello. We hear you do we see you we don't see you yet. Is your camera on. Yes. Thank you so much. Yes, there you are. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon colleagues. Yeah, I attended. Yes, and was there a patrol for the second and last session of yesterday, the one on something of impacts. And it went by a craze beyond reporting impacts. The first learning point came from there, because the general feeling was that just reporting impacts as we always do in projects can actually be superficial because we want to think on what we have done and what we have believed. But according to the way the project was was planned, but then really what were the impacts for real and they sustainable. Anything happened after the end of the project. So we had three interesting and yeah, very interesting presentations. And they were even interesting in their approach in that there was one that was pitched at level, another one that was pitched at local level as in it was a community project. And then we had one that was pitched at a super national level at an international level. So it was very interesting to ease out the sustainability of impact at these different levels. The first project was looking at a project which we had implemented a community of practice for worker operators. And what we learned there first and foremost in that impacts and projects spin offs may not always be visible that they may be there but not always visible that while there was a minimal activity, like when they monetize the platform that was created for sharing knowledge and for exchanging innovation. There was very little activity in there. But then it was there was evidence that information was consumed on, you know, contacts were taken. Innovation was actually discussed. And what was found was that all this information that was taken from the platform, although there was very little action in the platform itself was used outside the platform. The other learning point regarding sustainability was that there was no activity. Later on it was found that there was no activity because the intended recipients or the intended participants in the COPs were field workers who were always busy in the field. And therefore the type of platform that was created was an extra demand on their busy time. And therefore they were not always able to interact in the intended way. And this is why most of the interaction actually seemed to happen outside the platform. And therefore we agreed in our discussions that it is important to seek understanding of those that are to be impacted, that is to check their capacity and ability to embrace the impact, to be able to participate and actually benefit from the impact. So there had been an assumption that the way the COP was created with the... I think you have another minute. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so let me move on then to the next project, the one that was at a community level. And it was found in this one that sometimes you can have unintended impacts. This project which was helped farmers extract water from right by basins of Africa actually was aimed at influencing policy so that such policy can embrace that kind of innovation. But the impact here on policy was modest. And then also it was also at the youth because of the discovery of youth unemployment. Here, again, the impact was very minimal. But the most impact was on older farmers, especially women, who they were impacted more because it turned out that they were the ones who were needing farming innovation more. And also had general responsibility of livelihood for the family and were interested in the innovation that actually increased the production and also improved their livelihood more. So older women tended to be the ones embracing the technology a lot more. It was also discussed, just give me one more minute please. It was also discussed that there is a difficulty in convincing donors not to go for their big funding and funded projects and instead go for micro incremental funding that can sponsor small projects that have family level impact. Because in this particular project, the most impact was on the family unit than it was on the intended big policy shifts for this project. Lastly, what we learned again yesterday was that for impact to be relevant, the project needs to be embedded in the broader local framework that the project must actually be aimed at supporting local initiatives. And that in itself will support the project being sustainable. And also that, so generally, for all the projects, it was found that there is usually impact, which is not necessarily in the planned form, which may not be, which may even be sustainable. So partners may need to have the flexibility to accept that there will be impact, but not in the intended form. But this does not take away from the responsibility of the project proponents to be deliberate in ensuring that intervention is relevant and can be sustained by those who actually are the recipients of the initiatives. And we may sound like broken records when we say initiators need to take the time to involve all stakeholders from the part and make sure that the proposed project is relevant and supporting local initiatives so that those initiatives can carry into sustainability. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for summarizing this session I'm sorry to put pressure on you in terms of time. Maybe one learning is that we need to create sufficient time for these sessions. But we also of course want to keep an eye on the time. In the last session, the final I would like to ask my great to give a short summary of the main points discussed and the main issues raised as being the moderator of that session. Thanks. Thanks. So the session actually just concluded so I'm still feeling a bit warm by from moderating it. It was a wonderful session and I think the purpose of the session it was called a funnel learning from failures, but I think underneath that title, the purpose of the session really was to rethink the terms in which we discuss these kinds of project and their outcomes. And also accepting that what the outcomes are may change in the process of doing the project. The session started with a very nice presentation by Vim and Yeltsche in which they explained a bit about the history and context of the water development partnership program. And what is very clear from their presentations that the is that the program always has been about developing and building partnerships. So partnerships are very crucial to the program. The latest phase of the program, although Yeltsche and Vim don't like to talk about faces. So let's say the the the program that Yeltsche is now leading has slightly shifted the focus on from just impacts on joint learning and the joint learning it's that comes with a new kinds of question because how do you measure learning how do you account for it. How do you do learning how do you create the equal playing ground that is needed for joint learning if while also dealing with deep colonial hierarchies and and legacies. All these questions Yeltsche raised and and also put on the table to say, hmm, these are the questions we are trying to navigate. And so this wonderful presentation actually opened up the space for the two presentations that followed by first by Nadia Fauzi from Iraq, who presented a whole suite of projects in the in the Iraqi marshes showing how all these actually, although they they invested millions failed, and they failed not just because they they are projects that happen in a very difficult context that is post war, affected by climate change, drying of rivers because of upstream development, but also because of a deep failure, a deep, almost lack of willingness of the donors and project partners to really engage with local governments and local communities. Those who have who experienced the problems, water problems on a day to day basis but those also will have a lot of knowledge to to deal with these problems and their commitment is needed to make the project a success so Nadia's presentation was a strong plea for for contextualizing for being being much more aware about the specifics of projects sites and people's people and really engaging with these and for true real involvement. And all these pleas of Nadia, of course, come again with questions because they require a different way of of working a different way of operating. And after the presentation of Nadia we went to the presentation of Adele Adele Yassin, who presented a waste water treatment project in Palestine, dealing with an aquifer that is shared between Israel and Palestine. So that was is a very, how can I say, in the current war situation, it becomes even more clear how projects like this are always deeply and intrinsically political. And that and Adele also showed how this this happened and how by by how on the one hand the project is very clear in articulating that having a clean aquifer and treating the wastewater is to the to the benefit of everybody. Yet, of course, there is, there is power differences, there is legacies of war, there is resentment, there is animosities that need to be dealt with, and that also translate in water. This all these two presentations of Adele and Nadia, and Nadia provoked quite an interesting discussion about how to effectively deal with politics geopolitics in supposedly technical water projects with very different positions and some saying, hey, you, there's a danger in hiding between techno managerial solutions, pretending they're not political, because they always are. And on the other hand, using you can also use techno managerial projects and hiding behind their supposedly non politicalness to do something in situations that are politically very charged. It's an interesting conversation that I feel should be continued. Thank you so much for this nice summary of the session that indeed just finished. So thank you very much for wrapping up. I would also like to invite also the audience once again to start answering questions in the Q&A or raising your hands, both if you want to share some interesting messages that you picked up in the last few days some surprises that you perhaps or things that have changed your mind that changed your, your perspective on the issues we discussed in the last three days, but also if you have advice for us as a program on how we can move forward and how can we deal with some of the issues and challenges that we discussed in the past In the meantime, I would like to also ask the panelists or the people who are now here with us, the reporters and moderators. What kind of advice would you give us as a program to improve our work on the topics we have discussed and to also help us improve our understanding of how to move impact beyond reporting. So may I ask one of the reporters or one of the moderators, Moitri perhaps or Farana or Lapo to give us advice. It would be nice if you could switch on your camera so that we can also see several of you if you're willing to of course. I see Moitri. Yeah. Yes. So shall we, can I start or please. Yeah. Throughout, I think the last session was just brilliant. Actually, the, the one with Nadine and Yeah, the Palestinian and Nadine and the questions it raised were actually that question runs through all of the, if you come to think of it. The tech managerial and the politics runs through all of the sessions. Even the title, you know, it's for impact everything was for impact advocacy for impact diversity inclusion for impact, etc. But impact has a connotation and development of progress. And, and it's kind of imbued with meaning, which is technical economic economic mystic, it's, it's not about well being it is not about inclusiveness, and it's certainly not about the politics of inequality. So, how to continue conversations that actually unpack these of these words because they're so central to water projects. Without these I mean, the, the three that we had in ours and at least the first two. I mean, it's the lives of really poor people and marginalized people that we are talking about. And if we cannot shift the meaning of what is impact from what it is now understood to be, because after all is this money is also coming from somewhere to do this project. And so my suggestion would be more, you know, create the spaces to have these in depth conversations. So that we can all I mean so that everybody associated with the project and wider can learn. So there's a whole learning element there. Thank you very much and I cannot agree more I have the same. Yeah, associations with impacts, which makes it problematic in many different ways and I think we need to move beyond numerical indicators and very tangible outputs because often if we want to make a real change and if we really want to improve things for the better it's much more subtle it's not that straightforward it's much harder to capture and but that is where we need to stay with the trouble as some authors say and I think that is what. At least I see as our responsibility as the program to shift not just our program but programs like us because we also try to share our learnings with other programs and also we have very close relations with people at the ministry who are our main contact there and we have regular interactions with them about the challenges we face and I think staying with the trouble I think is something we need to practice more and because I think it's challenging for all of us and impacts doesn't capture that. And I think we need to be aware or at least the way it is understood right now so thank you very much for for sharing that advice and I will try to take it forward for Anna I also see your. Do you have some specific advice and in meantime please and I see already one hand up from the audience we are going to give you soon space to answer questions but also in the Q&A please feel free to answer questions. Thank you for the, I also have similar kind of suggestion I mean it's difficult to give suggestion. It's like we need to we always divide. We always divide as technological person or technical person and who is working in the sector or the people who are working for so how we can create more safe space like these or some other program and how we can. How we can translate the need for the people actually rather than thinking of a donor's perspective or the founder's perspective or a scientist perspective. So that's the thing that you are trying to do and we need to do more those sort of things other than. Working or thinking from outside like what should be done rather than what is needed. And how this can be done. So that's it for me. Thank you very much. And I also see in the Q&A already interesting questions popping up indeed how we can also give more space for communities or representatives of communities to actively participate in this kind of events and contribute we did had some but I think indeed there's a. We need to find ways also to have these kind of sessions more inclusive in terms and more diverse in terms of who's participating and who is who's speaking. Do you have some advisors for us. Just one line actually you just nailed it at the end there. I was going to say that you have really created a special niche on how to report on projects and talk about what project they're doing and what impact really is. I'm just going to say that it would get even more interesting if we actually have the communities where these projects actually speak in such meetings as this, otherwise it was perfect and I was quite happy to be a part of it. And yeah, so we can shift the gear even further because we have now started an innovation of speaking on impacting a completely different way. To get further and have the actual communities help us in showing what unique impact we are talking about. Thank you. Thank you so much lapo I see my gate nodding my gate I'm sure knowing you, you have some great advice is for us as well right. I don't have great advice I just I just want to echo what lapo and partner, and my three are also saying and, and actually I want to, to just express my, my admiration and gratitude for the entire water development and the partnership program team for organizing this and for for do it making this first step in creating this space and allowing all of us to meet in, in very non insulting and civilized ways. I think that is a true achievement. It's not easy. And you have helped us get along together getting to know each other. And, yeah, I think that that is just an amazing amazing feat and indeed as lapo said, she said it much better than I did. This is a is already the changes already starting through this. And I also think we, we do it together right it's not just us on our side and by the way I have a whole team here with me, and also we have a whole team so it's not just the ones who are speaking who are involved, but also we do it together with our partners and and we do it together with all of you. And so I think, in that sense. Thank you very much for this, this message but we need to share it with all of those involved. I see that there's an hands raised by Camille. My colleagues are now giving you access to speak up so if you open your mic, I hope we can hear you. Thanks a lot. Am I being heard. Am I audible. Yes, we can hear you very loud and well thank you. Yeah, thanks a lot. I'm going to take it from where Margaret stopped because creating this space is actually very, very important for all of us in the field. My concern is we just need to take it a bit further because to actually create impact means that we need to get to the rooms because sometimes there is this dichotomy between the advanced the developed world and the developing world. And the way things operate and a bit different. So I'm thinking if it is possible, there is a way we can collaborate across board in order to enrich the policies and laws in all their countries. And in this, in this climb, cold support in engaging the executives in those countries. Because advocacy in those countries will actually help in ensuring that impact is highly created. Most of the greatest disturbances we have been having in this climb is that the, the dichotomy between political class and the professionals is high. So if there is a way we kind of fashion out a plan to ensure that this is reduced by ensuring that similar advocacy to executives and legislative arms in the developing countries, in terms of the laws and policies, you know, broader things like that, you know, concerns and all of us. I think that would very much be helpful. And I'm sure that will also translate into broader engagement. Thank you. Thank you very much Camille. I think this is really one point that was also raised in our session indeed about advocacy, however, I think the increased need for collaborations between scientists, but also activists, journalists and all kinds of others involved in advocacy efforts. Civil society organizations, grassroots organizations is much needed to actually make make a change and contribute to change. So I'm sure this is it is already something we, we are very keen about and we hope to facilitate but this sessions have further emphasized indeed the needs and also that are still a lot of to learn from each other, how to, how to collaborate how to do research and advocacy and how we can let them go hand in hand to strengthen. Yeah, the work we are doing. I'm looking at if there are any other questions raised. I don't see so many at the moment. Oh, and I see here one remark about from fees one not. I'm sorry I'm not having my reading glasses on so I cannot read it very well. But it's about to add to the complexity of things is that there is not such a thing as an homogeneous entity called the community has so indeed I think that is something that is very important to emphasize that also communities are not all in agreement with very strong hierarchies often in communities as well related to class class gender race, etc. And that therefore that also influences which solutions or which directions are being chosen. We as a water sector we need to be careful to listen to the people. And we need to be trained on how to listen to them carefully and also take into account this extra complexity before we take action. So that are very nice reflections thank you very much and very good for us all to take into account as well in the work we are doing. I'm looking at the time I wanted to share a few more less slides before closing off this session I'm looking at my colleague here in the room to help me with that. I had prepared a presentation but actually most of the things that I wanted to say are already set so I will try to keep it a bit short. I wanted to summarize a few of the key messages that we on our side as program have picked up. So when I refer to we I mean the program management here with me in the room. As I already mentioned most of those things are already set by the reporters and by the moderator so I won't repeat it. But I think one of our key messages is and that's also relates to the Camille raised issue just now as well had there's a there's a need to blur the boundaries between science and activism much more and to seek collaborations between those involved in advocacy efforts and those research involved in research or in interventions. Because in the end I believe all of us are activists in some way. And we all share our wishes and our aims for a more cleaner and fairer and more peaceful world, even if we do so in different ways and in different contexts, which also was emphasized in the panel on failures. And so I think it's important that we seek these collaborations and collaborate because in that way our impacts might be larger in the new way of understanding impacts. We also touched upon had the issue of diversity and inclusion, recognizing that it's still very differently understood, even though there's more attention for it, but also that it remains controversial, creating this anxiety among water professionals. And actually for us that points to the need for a dialogue about the intrinsic value of diversity beyond the donor requirements, and perhaps even as was also already pointed out by my three focusing on sameness. So I think that's also one point that is very clear from the discussions that we would like to pick up in the future. I think the session on technology was very clear that academics have a role to play in demystifying technologies and to ensure that community perspectives are included. So it's very important that we involve communities or the perspective of other problem owners from the early inception of our projects. And that's the issues that we address and the work we do is clearly rooted in actual problems that they face in their everyday lives, and that they and that their involvement is not just a token, but really in depth understanding by listening to their problems, what the issues are, and what kind of solutions they have because the wisdom they have and the knowledge they have about their own circumstances, their own context is very specific and very valuable. Next slide please. There were quite some messages that we picked up in relation to sustainability of impact. Of course, the issue was raised about that we need to carefully think from the beginning of the projects how we intend to sustain impacts beyond the project and also consider funding mechanisms, perhaps even working towards more programmatic funding instead of project based funding for meaningful initiatives. But I think also what was raised quite clearly in the sessions was that upscaling and outscaling is not necessarily leading to larger impacts as small scale work is often much more context specific and embedded in existing and local strategies to support ongoing initiatives. And I think what I hear again we already repeated a few times but the quote by Nadia that everything is specific is everything specific is specific in specific places is very important to keep in mind so out upscaling and outscaling might not always lead to the desired outcomes. Another very interesting remark that was made in the session on sustainability is that sometimes you need to accept that some activities may never be sustainable in the sense that they will would always need external funding, yet are still worth continue doing. So there's this emphasis on sustainability in the sense of very specific financial terms, but we also need to acknowledge that a lot of work we do and especially the work we do in between our activities and the care work we are doing to maintain relations or to remain interactions are perhaps not easily easily sustainable by itself but are still worth investing in. And then there was a discussion about how to make impacts more visible. So there was discussions about how impacts are not necessarily straightforward that they're often very incremental that they often are very with small steps forwards and steps backwards again. And I think we need to capture these very complex processes of how impacts come about and how to make them more visible, especially also when there are projects that end in multiple new relations new alliances being formed and spin off activities. And one message that also became very clear from the panel, the presentations that we just saw from Iraq and Palestine but also the work we are doing here at IG that we need to remain very realistic and very modest about the impacts we can actually make. I know also for myself we get carried away because we want to present a perfect program and we want to show all the good work we are doing. But in the end, of course, it's about the real impacts that we make in those difficult circumstances in those countries that that suffer from violence and sometimes even war situations so I think we need to be realistic of what is feasible and be open about that. And to present things to be nicer than they are and to be modest in what kind of impacts we can make, because only in that way I think our impacts are really meaningful and unsustainable in the longer term. Next slide please. So what we will do on our side as a program. For certain we will offer more trainings on advocacy and dignified storytelling because that was also highlighted as as neat as lots to learn about how to tell our stories in dignified manners but also how to engage with advocacy efforts. We will organize discussion sessions on diversity and decolonizing water sciences what does it mean to different people how does it affect our work. Where does the anxiety come from how can we collaborate on that and how can we emphasize collaboration and sameness in these processes. Of course we will continue with facilitating learning between project teams, because I think that is something that we really focus on in this phase of the program and that has been very valuable so far. And of course are also the outputs with broader audiences. Next slide, you can maybe. We will facilitate alliances and interactions between women project coordinators to support each other and navigate additional challenges they experience. As mentioned before we have put very talented women and very talented people of color in lead positions as project coordinators. However, some of them still experience difficult situations where they need to deal with persistent behaviors and hierarchies that undermine their, their, their leading leadership, I would say. So we think it's important to bring them together to learn together and to give them a safe space where we can jointly address these issues. We want to continue providing active and pragmatic supports to partner lead projects because we understand and we know that sometimes the things we ask from you, and the things we are expecting are not always easy and and sometimes you deal with very different administrative processes and different circumstances and we want to continue thinking with you supporting you in trying to help you implement your projects, and particularly, we would like to work with partners in focus countries that are torn by ongoing violence and war situations to explore how we can support them amongst other Palestine was already mentioned a few times in this symposium but of course the same is in Sudan there's also a very tragic situation going on and and Yemen Somali are also focused countries, which are already longer in in very dire situations. So we find it important to express our solidarity with the partners in these countries but also to think about how we can continue supporting them and collaborating with them. Not but least, we would also like to explore possibilities for top up funding of projects that make very meaningful impacts to also think about how to sustain financially some of the ongoing activities. And next slide. Oh, and there's another point that came up. We also want to invest in studying impacts, the impacts of our program and find creative ways in jointly monitoring them. I said earlier we need to be modest and be humble in the work we are doing. However, I find it also very important that we celebrate your achievements and that we make them very visible and share them with the rest of the world so I'm very happy that we have launched a program repository where we aim to store all key outputs of the program not just the phase three but also phase two outputs will be shared through this platform. So we're very happy to share this with you we will do a bit broader campaign later on when there are sufficient outputs uploaded but already now there are several of them available. So we are very happy to also show the good work you are doing and share that with the rest of the world. Next slide. And I would like to close this symposium with a personal mode, because I feel very privileged to coordinate this program with a great team, a committee, a sounding board to support me, and with so many inspiring project teams and partners all around the world. I also realized that I am very privileged to be allowed to do this job, and that there are so many talented people in the countries where we focus on that would be much better place to coordinate this program. So I struggle sometimes with my own privilege, and I know several of my colleagues here at IHC and perhaps also in the audience have the same. My dear colleague Vadim, who is our own, who is our spin in the web of our program and who communicate with some of you almost on a daily basis, shared a blog, some days ago which captures very nicely how we can use our privilege to invest in something good. So I would like to read this quote from this blog by Brittany pregnant. So, how can we spend our privilege and invested in something good. Train yourself towards solidarity, and not charity. You are no one's savior. You are a mutual partner in the pursuit of freedom. Watson, an Aboriginal activist and artist once said, if you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bounded up with mine, then let us work together. I want to be free. I want you to be free. And you aren't free until I am spent your privilege. And just when you think you spend enough spend a bit more. With this, I would like to end this session by thanking many people here in in the room and this event would have not been possible with your support and the great audience of 154 countries if I'm correct. All the presenters, the moderators, the reporters, the friends interpreters who are working hard. If we speak too fast to keep up our great technical tech support. Thanks a lot for helping us out and solving all the issues here on the in the room with me. Of course my dear colleagues, the masters of ceremony. Nadine, I'm our communication and promotion team in particular Denise who just joined us a month ago and is doing a great job. And in particular one person. Okay, you please put on your camera and our main organizer and coordinating a coordinator of this event I'm contractor my dear colleague. Thank you so much without you. This would not have been possible. And we can't wait for the next symposium so we are looking forward to see you all again online with us in a year's time but of course also in between in the sessions we will organize. So with that, I would like to thank you all and wish you a nice evening and nice morning wherever you are. And let's remain in touch. Thank you.