IWA Young Water Professionals is a community established with the aim to empower them as emerging water talent in the water sector and the association.
IWA Young Water Professionals are dedicated, enthusiastic, and passionate water professionals (IWA member) aged 35 or below, who wish to develop their career, build their network and engage in the International water community to contribute to inspire change.
The community covers about 100 countries, and represents academia, policy, consultancy and industry, and cover a wide range of disciplines. Everyone, who is interested in any angle of water management is welcome to join.
Through this community they can start to grow their careers by engaging with their peers; organising activities by and for YWP to connect, develop their competencies, and initiate YWP activities or contribute to IWA’s activities.
Internationally the community works closely with IWA to be empowered in the association’s activities and the water sector. Over the years the community has worked on and increasingly been involved in IWA’s leadership:
The result is that IWA is integrating ywps, recognising their contributions and leadership which leads to their empowerment.
At country level (not all countries) IWA supports its young members to develop IWA Young Water Professional Chapters – groups of local IWA members that work locally with the same vision as IWA – to empower young water professionals in the sector.
The result is that IWA is integrating ywps, recognising their contributions and leadership which leads to their empowerment.
The water sector faces the significant dual challenges of an ageing workforce and a shortage of adequately skilled staff to meet growing demand for services. Across the spectrum of low, middle and high income countries, there is a common need to attract and retain qualified personnel to design, build, operate, manage and maintain water resources and water & wastewater services. This is a serious challenge that needs to be tackled now; not tomorrow.
IWA recognised this need back in 2002 when it started to initiate a range of activities that would attract young water professionals to IWA and the water sector. This started with the development of Young Researcher conferences that were priced at much lower fee than IWA conferences, and in 2006 the first Young Water Professional Steering committee was formed – by IWA members of 35 and below – with the main aim to provide advice to IWA and support implementation of activities that would encourage ywps to become part of the network, and join the water sector in general. As such these activities were focused to:
The Young Water Professional steering committee came up with further ideas and advice for IWA to become THE network for young water professionals (beyond just students) consisting of the following sub-cohorts with their respective needs:
Young water professional activities increasingly developed to:
We proceed currently to integrate ywps further in the association and the water sector, and have the goal to empower the next generation of water leaders by supporting the sector to attract young professionals (ranging from social, natural and engineering sciences, policy makers, scholars and practitioners), and assisting them to fulfill their potential to become the global leaders in their field.
Let your dreams come true!