United Nations University - International Network on Water, Environment and Health

UNU-INWEH’s mission is “to contribute, through capacity development and directed research, to efforts to resolve pressing global water problems that are of concern to the United Nations, its Member States and their Peoples”.

The core concern of the United Nations University’s International Network on Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) is the global water crisis. Lack of adequate freshwater supplies and poor water management directly block efforts to alleviate poverty and to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly those for water. It is now widely accepted that a critical factor contributing to the water crisis is the lack of indigenous capacity – scientific, educational, managerial, technological and institutional - for effective water management in many developing countries. Despite some progress, many barriers remain, including the fragmented, intermittent, donor-driven, project-based approach that has been so ineffective, and even damaging, in the past.

In response to this challenge, UNU-INWEH’s programme is designed to provide applied science and capacity-building initiatives that enable water managers to better address both the root causes and current manifestations of the global water crisis.

UNU-INWEH activities serve two core functions:

• Capacity Development: strengthening of scientific, managerial, educational and institutional capacity to enhance Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) implementation in developing countries. The focus is on cross-cutting, distance-education programmes in IWRM; ecosystem-specific “networks of best practice” for comparative research, monitoring and knowledge diffusion; and stewardship for development of new research capacity and institutions.

• Directed Science & Policy Bridging: conducting applied research to fill critical knowledge gaps and deriving water policy and governance innovations from the resultant knowledge. This function is intimately linked to and helps to inform the capacity-development function of UNU-INWEH. The science is directed to problem identification studies, where local science capacity is weak; diagnostic research on critical or urgent issues; and the acquisition, interpretation and management of scientific data and information. Policy derivation and guidance generally involves “think-tank” collaboration and “knowledge-brokering” within projects, or through international policy-oriented networks.