Is Canada ready to hear from a new wave of water leaders?

The climate crisis is a water crisis. This won’t surprise many after the destruction, loss of life, and economic impacts of recent extreme climate events. Atmospheric rivers caused massive flooding and mudslides in British Columbia and severely damaged critical infrastructure. Heat domes razed large parts of Western Canada and are believed to be responsible for more than 600 deaths in the summer of 2021. In January, a bomb cyclone left millions of North Americans under a blanket of cold snow and ice, leading to 1.5 million people without power. However, these extreme events have not directly impacted all of us. Even when directly affected, people experience impacts to different degrees due to existing access to drinking water, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status, remoteness, and more. This is partly because of a lack of representation and diversity in water management and fragmentation in water governance that contributes to inequities in water resource allocation and climate change mitigation, adaptation, and planning. Dr. Andrea May Rowe is the equity, diversity, and inclusion specialist at the Global Institute for Water Security and Global Water Futures at the University of Saskatchewan. Photograph courtesy of Andrea May Rowe Recent United Nations Climate Change Conferences, including COP 26 in Glasgow, U.K., and COP 27 in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, have only highlighted global inequities in water decision-making and power access. COP 26 in Glasgow was called out by activists and journalists as the most exclusionary climate conference in history because of the high cost of accommodation, lack of travel visas, and low representation of women, Indigenous people, and people from the Global South; this was repeated at COP 27 in Sharm el-Sheik in 2022. The COP conferences are one example of an ongoing problem that permeates water decision-making spaces. White men from the Global North dominate the field of water research and policymaking. At the same time, the lived experience and expertise of women, Indigenous People, people from the Global South, racialized people, and people in equity-deserving groups are systematically on the margins of developing the solutions necessary to address the climate crisis. While Canada has had a Feminist International Assistance Policy since 2017, little attention has been paid to elevating the voices of women and girls in global water dialogues. At COP 15, the December 2022 UN Biodiversity Conference in Montreal, equity, diversity, inclusion, and the representation of Indigenous Peoples featured prominently in what is considered a historic biodiversity agreement. How will Canada take up these recommendations? There are more than 30 long-term drinking water advisories in Indigenous communities in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario still to be resolved, which take a social, economic, and environmental toll on the people living in these communities daily. Investing in high-quality, gender-disaggregated data using an intersectional approach and implementing decision-making processes informed by the intersection between people and water is the only way to fully understand who is vulnerable, where, and why. Dr. Corinne Schuster-Wallace is Global Water Futures associate director and associate professor in the department of geography and planning at the University of Saskatchewan and founder of Women Plus Water. Photograph courtesy of Corinne Schuster-Wallace There is a significant opportunity for governments at all levels to reflect on how they engage with diverse voices and to ensure that there is space for all voices to be heard by extending invitations to participate in high-level dialogues, funding attendance, and insisting on a diversity of participants in every room where decisions are made. To support this change, Women Plus Water, an initiative born out of Global Water Futures and the Global Institute for Water Security at the University of Saskatchewan, is launching an expert list to introduce communities, leaders, and policymakers to a new wave of leaders in water research, management, and decision-making. The inspiration for the expert list came from the more than 2,000 participants in 49 countries who regularly attend the online Women Plus Water lecture series events that take on topics from water diplomacy to water modelling, and more. The audience, expert guests, and hosts are from all aspects of water research and management and include a mix of early-career professionals and established leaders. On Feb. 10, The Women Plus Water expert list was officially launched at the United Nations General Assembly in conjunction with the United Nations International Day for Women and Girls in Science led by Iraqi princess Dr. Nisreen El-Hashemite and the Royal Academy of Sciences International Trust. Water experts from Canada and worldwide are strongly encouraged to join the list by applying at womenpluswater.org. Organizations seeking water experts to engage in community outreach, speaking engagements, conference presentations, consulting, and more are also welcome to access the list and invite experts to participate directly. A new generation of leaders is stepping up to the challenge to increase diversity in sustainable water management for equitable decisions that leave no one behind and protect those most vulnerable to water-related extremes. Diversity benefits everyone. The time is now to act for a more inclusive water community. Dr. Andrea May Rowe is the equity, diversity, and inclusion specialist at the Global Institute for Water Security and Global Water Futures at the University of Saskatchewan. Dr. Corinne Schuster-Wallace is Global Water Futures associate director and associate professor in the department of geography and planning at the University of Saskatchewan and founder of Women Plus Water. The Hill Times