Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1697637417684.pdf (Australia)
Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 52 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia’s aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role in supporting Australia's regional interests.
eWater Ltd & The Australian Water Partnership (AWP) Submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade June 2018 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 52 Innovation in Australia’s Aid Program eWater Ltd is a recent contributor to the Australian Aid Program, effectively from June 2012 when we emerged from the Co-operative Research Centre phase as an innovative partnership between The Commonwealth and four State Governments to actively enhance Australia’s reputation as a leading water management modelling organisation through sharing of our core Water Tools with the developing world.
With DFAT, eWater also established the innovative Australian Water Partnership (AWP) in 2015 to enable easier access to Australian public and private sector water experience and expertise to assist countries in the Indo-Pacific region to improve sustainable water resources management.

To support better planning and management of water in Australia, the Council of Australian Governments adopted a National Hydrologic Modelling Strategy (NHMS) in November 2008.
A key output from the NHMS is the Source modelling platform which has been developed by eWater in collaboration with Australian governments and represents decades of encapsulated water management expertise within the capabilities of the eWater Toolsets.
The Australian Water Partnership (AWP) has developed a demand-driven model, and the 170 public and private sector AWP partners are ready to assist international partners (governments and multilateral agencies) on urgent water challenges through expert advice, technical assistance, introducing new approaches and technology, pilot demonstrations, and study visits.
AWP targets integrated basin management, efficient irrigation, sustainable urban water supplies, and protection of the environment through water resource assessments, governance reform, institutional strengthening, basin planning and water allocation, and managing demand and improving efficiency.

AWP is an agile initiative that can quickly respond to critical needs, ensuring positive development outcomes and diplomatic successes.
AWP is also working to develop a ‘One Australia’ approach through public and private partnerships in Australia and in the region.

AWP aims to implement Australia’s commitment to sharing its water management expertise to help boost food production, improve health outcomes, strengthen economies and reduce poverty.
“Australia has ‘established a $20 million Australian Water Partnership to share Australia’s water sector expertise internationally.” (Foreign Policy White Paper, page 94) Why Water is Key to Australia’s Aid Programme & Regional Interests Water is essential to all life and to development.
Water scarcity is a current and growing problem for many countries in all regions, due to ever-increasing demand for water, driven by population growth and economic development, and reduced availability of useable water due to less reliable rainfall and water quality degradation.

This situation is amplified by climate change.

Socio-economic Sustainable water management is an imperative for economic and social development and growth.

Water needs underpin all aspects of our lives and livelihoods.
There is continued recognition of the importance water and the risk presented by its inefficient and ineffective governance.

The World Economic Forum has ranked ‘water crises’ as one of the top five global risks in terms of economic impact for the last six consecutive years.
More than half of the world’s cities and 75 percent of irrigated farms are experiencing water shortages on a recurring basis, jeopardising world food supplies, access Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 52 to water and sanitation, and economic growth.
Some regions could see their growth rates decline by as much as 6 percent of GDP by 2050 as a result of water-related losses in agriculture, health, income and property – sending them into negative trending growth.

By 2030, half of the world’s poor are expected to live in fragile contexts affected by climate change impacts.
Peace and Security Although there are more instances of cooperation over shared water resources between countries, there is an increasing number of sub-national conflicts that can contribute and escalate into regional level conflict.

Increasing levels of water scarcity can act as a threat multiplier in already fragile states or tip at-risk countries into fragile state status.

The use of water as a weapon to further terrorist objectives is also expected to become more likely beyond 10 years.
The Mosul Dam in Iraq, for instance, was used by ISIS to threaten both floods and supply shortages for the downstream community of over half a million people.

Water in such cases serves as a divisive strategic asset or acts as leverage in political negotiations.

Water scarcity issues could also lead to larger waves of migration, increasing strains on immigration systems globally.
A recent report by the World Bank concluded that around 40 million people in South Asia could be forced to migrate within their countries from areas of low crop productivity and low water availability as a result of the impacts of climate change by 2050.

Ecological sustainability Climate Change is Water Change.
Apart from crippling droughts and devastating floods that impact on our food, transportation, energy and housing sectors, and climate change is altering the underlying hydrological signature in many regions of the world.

According to WWF Living Planet Index, the greatest decline in environment health is seen in the freshwater biome globally.
Improved water resource management with fair and transparent allocation of available water between users including water for the environment will be critical, as freshwater ecosystems underpin all our socio-economic aspirations both within Australian and in our neighbouring Indo-Pacific region.
“Climate change, environmental degradation and the demand for sustainable sources of food, water and energy will be political, economic and security disrupters over the longer term.” (Foreign Policy White Paper, page 33) Contributing to the strategic and development goals of Australia’s Aid Program Australia’s water management experience and expertise are internationally recognised.
This recognition led to Prime Minister Turnbull being invited to be one of 11 heads of State/Government to participate in the UN/World Bank initiated High Level Panel on Water (HLPW).

Australia took the lead on water efficiency, water data and innovation during the two-year life of the HLPW and as a result, countries from all regions of the world have now expressed interest in accessing Australia’s water expertise and technology.
The Australian Water Partnership (AWP) played an invaluable role assisting DFAT in providing framing papers and guidance notes to the High Level Panel on Water (HLPW).
Continuing the momentum of the HLPW and galvanizing the efforts to implement the SDGs, the AWP works closely with partner governments, civil society and the private sector in the Indo-Pacific to progressively realize SDG 6: ‘Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.’ Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 52 The Australian Water Partnership (AWP) has signed MOUs with the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and works closely with DFAT Posts to identify activities and opportunities in the region where Australia can provide technical assistance in water resource management.
AWP also works through government-to-government arrangements (often under the auspices of Australian Government MoUs) as a mechanism to identify opportunities for Australian water agencies to provide advice to in-country partners on their national / state water policies, and the implementation of water legislation and regulations.

Internationally there are more than 1500 Users of eWater Source and 11,000 members of our long- standing Water Modelling Toolkit in more than 120 Countries.
Through application of a ‘problem- based learning’ approach where eWater provides software tools and capacity building based on solving real water management problems in the countries, a pathway to policy dialog is established with an enduring technology base and regular contact with the Australian developers and practitioners.
The five eWater government members represent the core water reform knowledge and capability and our collective partners cover the breadth of Australian expertise in the water resource management domain including areas such as catchments and river basins, water sensitive cities, modern irrigation systems, and environmental water quantity and quality.
Contributing to building trusted development partnerships eWater and our partners have established active technology partnerships in several developing countries in the Indo-Pacific (India, Pakistan, Nepal, Laos, Cambodia) with substantial engagements in Maharashtra and Karnataka supporting the Government of New South Wales and the Asian Development Bank.

AWP has established links with 30 countries with significant engagements in India, Myanmar, Vietnam and in the Pacific Islands.
With assistance from DFAT, AWP has established valued and trusted development partnerships with the Ministry of Water Resources in India, the National Water Commission in Myanmar and Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Vietnam.
In India AWP and eWater have made good progress in building trust with the Indian central and state government water sectors and as a result there is growing interest at state level, where the primary responsibility for water management rests, for partnerships, including commercial partnerships with Australian states and companies.
The most successful project is under the banner of the NSW-Maharashtra sister-state relationship where eWater Ltd has been awarded sole-source contracts worth AUD 1.1million to provide services in river basin planning and management using Australia’s national water model Source in the Indian State of Maharashtra on the back of seed funding from DFAT who supported the initial engagements.
This project began initially with support to the Maharashtrian Government to refine a high court judgement between irrigators but has continued through subsequent phases to the point where the Government of Maharashtra has engaged with the Government of New South Wales to develop and apply new water management policies and to reproduce the scientific basis of sustainable water management approach which has underpinned Australia’s reform journey.
The use of Australia’s National Water Tools to establish an outcome-oriented relationship which leads to policy dialog is an innovative approach to a trusted development partnership but has proven highly effective in this case.
AWP has also assisted the South Australian Government and agencies in South Australia to build links with the Indian State of Rajasthan, Western Australia Government and the Cooperative Research Centre Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 52 Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 52 Engaging the Private Sector eWater’s modelling tools are accessible under commercial arrangements and form the basis of commercial projects which are regularly undertaken by the private sector in competitively bid work for clients such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and other development organisations.
eWater’s strong network of partnerships through the aid channel embeds Australia’s Water tools within the countries and becomes preferred technology for when the private sector is engaged, further propagating Australia’s tools and broadening the reputation of Australia as a leading provider of Water Tools to enhance the management of water scarcity.
eWater and the Australian Governments can remain in the upstream advisory role supporting scientifically-based policy development while the private sector benefits from revenues and margins at the larger contracting level.

The Australian private sector have an inherently advantageous position in this respect by having access to the tools and expertise to strongly compete in the open market for services built around eWater’s tools and Australia’s policy engagement.
The Australian Water Partnership (AWP) has 170 Australian partners.

Seventy percent of these partners are from private sector organisations.

These partners are ready to assist international partners (governments and multilateral agencies) address urgent water challenges through expert advice, technical assistance, introducing new approaches and technologies, pilot demonstrations, and study visits.
Through its partnerships with the ADB and World Bank, AWP is increasing knowledge and awareness within the Australian private sector about opportunities to tender for international work funded by Bank loans.

In this regards, AWP gives emphasis to creating pathways to markets for its Australian private sector partners.
Kunshan City, a second tier Chinese city one-hour drive west of Shanghai, has recently completed over 30 on-ground projects to improve water management and recycling in just 3 years through a collaboration with the Melbourne based Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities (CRCWSC).

This is the first stage of Kunshan City’s ambitious goal of transforming into a sponge city, the Chinese term for a water sensitive city.
In February 2017, the CRCWSC and Kunshan City organized a Sponge City Trade Mission, sponsored by the Australian Water Partnership and the Victorian State Government with the aim of introducing Australian expertise in implementing water sensitive urban design principles.

Following the mission, six of the companies have won contracts in China and Australian industry is forming new and productive links with urban water needs in China.
Collaborations are already taking shape, with several Australian businesses now commissioned to contribute to an ambitious 10 ha Innovation Park, an imminent development that will demonstrate and commercialize leading water technologies.

Water Stewardship Australia (WSA) with support from AWP, is working with the Australian Council of Textile and Fashion and member companies to reduce water risks in their supply chains to achieve sustainable and responsible production of clothes.
Australian companies Cotton On, Pacific Brands and Country Road are working with WSA in China and Bangladesh where many of their factories are based.

WSA has signed a contract with Apple to improve water stewardship in their supply chain in China and is negotiating a contract for training in water stewardship with Ecolab in China.

Nestle has funded water stewardship research by University of NSW through WSA.
Aither, a private specialist water advisory firm, with support from DFAT and the Australian Water Partnership, wrote the analytical framework WaterGuide, which aims to assist countries to improve water management and use under scarcity.

Jordan, also a member of the HLPW, invited Australia to a dialogue using WaterGuide.

The World Bank has now expressed interest in working (and investing) with Australia in Jordan.
Aither is leveraging the Australian Government’s investment in WaterGuide to win and deliver work for private clients in Australia and overseas.
Aither has already used Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 52 WaterGuide to inform investment decision making by a private water infrastructure investor and utility operator in the Philippines and to inform a review of global water policy and governance trends for one of Australia’s largest mining firms.
Australian Aid, through the ADB Water Financing Partnership Facility, has over the past 7 years engaged six Australian utilities in 16 water operator partnerships with utilities in the Pacific.

Hunter H2O, the private consulting company set up by Hunter Water in Newcastle, participated in these partnerships and as a result has established a substantial consulting business to utilities such as the Water Authority of Fiji, Solomon Islands Water and PNG Water.

“Australia is a leader in water management.


We will share our water management expertise to help enhance agricultural productivity, improve health outcomes, strengthen economies and reduce poverty.” (Foreign Policy White Paper, page 94) Outcomes for Women and Girls AWP supports Australia’s foreign policy pursuit of the empowerment of women as a top priority.
This has been operationalised at AWP through adoption of a Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) policy which calls for all its program activities to include a GESI component in their design and implementation.

Overall, however, only 25% of both international and Australian participants in AWP activities have been women, in line with participation rates by women in the Australian water sector.
AWP recognises that it needs to do more to boost the participation of women in its activities at home and abroad.

AWP recognises that in many poorer communities, women and girls are the primary collectors of water for the household.

Thus, recognising the intersectionality between SDG 6 and SDG 5 is critical to overcoming poverty and improving livelihoods of women and girls in poor urban and rural communities.
AWP has a partnership with the Pacific Water and Wastewater Association (PWWA) that brings together 26 utilities from 20 nations across the Pacific.

AWP has funded a capacity building program with PWWA which includes a gender component.

The current Chair of PWWA and the Executive Director of PWWA are both female and with their leadership a recent Young Water Professional training program had equal numbers of men and women participating.

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In November 2017, the Australian Water Association (AWA) hosted with AWP support, a delegation of more than 60 Australian water professionals to Vietnam’s leading water conference and exhibition VietWater.

The AWA hosted an inaugural “Women in Water’ workshop with the Vietnamese Women’s’ Union.

The second “Women in Water” workshop was recently hosted at OzWater18 and provided a further opportunity for women’s voices in the water sector to be heard.
AWP also took the occasion to announce its GESI policy and its Kini online Knowledge Sharing group on Women in Water.

Fostering sustainability, capacity, community-determined goals and best outcomes Australia’s water reform took more than thirty years of intense effort by Federal and State Government and a wide range of water users.
The pace at which water supply and demand is changing in developing countries due to climate change, population growth and changing lifestyles, may well lead to severe Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 52 water scarcity in many countries and they will not or do not have thirty years to reform how water is sustainably managed.
By linking water tools with irrigation management and the increasing demand for water for energy, Australia can assist countries to leap-frog in their approach and capacity to improve water management.

eWater is uniquely positioned with AWP and our Federal and State Members to draw on experience and insights to assist in developing a comprehensive yet practical response to the water-food-energy nexus challenge of the coming decade as identified in the Foreign Policy White Paper.
To be successful it is important there is a sound understanding of how Australia has implemented its water reforms.

This includes the suite of tools that are being used to underpin water resource management within Australia.

Australia’s expertise in managing water scarcity is borne of 100 years of water management experience.

A key lesson of this experience is that you cannot manage what you cannot measure and explain.
Consequently fit-for-purpose tools have been a critical part of the Australian water reform journey.

The suite of water tools developed as a result of this process, enabled through state and federal government investment and application to real Australian problems and represents a core part of the value proposition of Australia’s leadership in managing water scarcity.
In Cambodia an AWP-funded consortium of eWater, The Bureau of Meteorology and Geoscience Australia are supporting The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP) Drought Mechanism to provide timely water balance information about how drought conditions affect water availability and opens the dialog to engage with farmers on planning decisions to improve food outcomes.
Woking with the DFAT-funded CAVAC who are engaged in pilot programs with the Cambodian Food Value Chain, Australia’s core Water Tools are being applied in a modern satellite-based technology platform as a transportable pilot which can be scaled out to support up to continental scale scarcity management and a channel to policy dialog in the same context as the work with the Government of Maharashtra.
We have already seen the effectiveness of the ‘Water Tools-Led Approach’ in the Mekong and India which has led to long-term relationships and a desire on the part of the international partners to seek more information about Australia’s science-to-policy pathways.

This innovative Tools-led approach offers an opportunity to engage a highly diversified enhancement to Australia’s development partnerships and water scarcity policy engagement opportunities.
“The strength and diversity of Australia’s connections to the world mean that partnerships between all levels of government, and between the Australian Government and business and civil society, are essential to effective foreign policy.” (Foreign Policy White Paper, page 107) Conclusion The emerging global water crisis has led to growing international demand for Australia’s water expertise, particularly in managing water scarcity, and has increased Australia’s international influence and standing.
eWater’s unique membership of 5 Australian Governments originally established to support development of the shared National Hydrological Modelling Platform eWater Source and the successful ‘Tools-Led’ approach, followed by the establishment of the Australian Water Partnership under the aid program has enabled the Australian Government to strengthen Australia’s diplomatic and commercial water interests.
Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 52 The Foreign Policy White Paper acknowledges the central challenges of food, water and energy security in our region, and commits Australia to share our water expertise.

The global urban and industrial water sector is estimated at US$714 billion in 2016 and expected to exceed US$1 trillion by 2025.
Australia’s top ten two-way trading partners include the biggest markets for water related goods and services in the world, as well as some of the countries most exposed to water risk.

The partnerships between eWater, AWP and the Australian Government through the aid program is a strategic and effective program which after three years of operation is delivering development and trade outcomes for the Australian public and private water sector.
It is also supporting Australia’s regional interests through being flexible and ready to respond to request for assistance in improving water management from across the Indo-Pacific and wider afield.

Inquiry into the strategic effectiveness and outcomes of Australia's aid program in the Indo-Pacific and its role insupporting Australia’s regional interestsSubmission 52