The Water as Leverage Academy
Cities around the world face growing water challenges. Becoming more resilient requires the right knowledge, the right people, and a global community willing to learn together and share what works. That is what the Water as Leverage (WaL) Academy is built around.
The Academy is one of three pillars of Water as Leverage. It is the platform for knowledge development, capacity building and shared learning. The Academy is shaped in collaboration with Deltares, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, and a growing network of knowledge partners.
It brings together academic institutions and practitioners to co-produce the tools, training, and guidance that cities need to act on urban water resilience.
What the Academy does
Turning experience into knowledge and tools
The Academy draws on the experience of initiatives in WaL cities and other examples of urban water resilience work, alongside academic research, to develop knowledge and tools that cities can put into practice to enhance water resilience.
The WaL Guidance document – built around eight principles and six project stages, and available in multiple languages – is a key example. The toolkit also includes the WaL Serious Game for Climate Resilient Cities, available in English and Spanish, and turns the WaL principles and project stages into a hands-on, interactive experience. Players explore water challenges, step into different roles, and co-create solutions. The game is a practical tool for dialogue and collaborative learning, and has already been played in the Netherlands, Malaysia, Thailand, United States, The Gambia and Indonesia.
The Academy also produces thematic research on subjects such as coastal resilience, urban flooding and Nature-based Solutions, working with experts from universities, knowledge partners and research institutes to generate insights that can be applied in cities.
Download the WaL Guidance
Serious gameplay during a WaL Academy workshop in Gambia. Photo from ONE Architecture.
You go straight into a tangible problem in the city. I don’t think you’d ever reach that level of detail in a regular meeting.
Enabling cities to work with Water as Leverage
WaL Academy workshop in Miami, Florida, with King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima.
Through local WaL Academy partnerships, the Academy brings the WaL approach to cities – introducing its principles and experiences, and exploring together how they can be meaningful in that specific local context. Each local programme is shaped around the city it works with, and co-creation and shared learning are at its core. Local partners, city leaders, planners, community organisations and decision-makers come together to connect WaL insights with local knowledge, build new relationships, and develop pathways for action.
An example is the WaL Academy Bangkok programme, where Thai stakeholders and the WaL network come together through in-depth research on the Bangkok water system, across a series of workshops and field visits to co-create WaL-inspired approaches for the city’s water challenges. The Academy is also active in the United States. In South Florida, it focuses on connecting examples and lessons learned in the Dutch context to the challenges facing the Greater Miami area — for instance, on greening the urban landscape, drawing on the City of Rotterdam’s approach. At the same time, the Academy looks at lessons from Florida that can be applied in the Netherlands, such as on heat stress and more extreme weather events.
These local programmes typically deliver results on three levels. Participants deepen their understanding of the WaL approach and how to apply it. New relationships and collaborations take shape that shift local narratives and ways of working. And clear pathways emerge for local partners to continue and expand their WaL-inspired efforts.
Connecting through global platforms
The WaL approach gains strength through visibility and exchange. The Academy actively participates in major international forums – including the World Urban Forum, the UN Climate Change Conference and World Water Week – creating opportunities for practitioners to share their work, build new partnerships and connect local experience to global agendas.
Winners of the 2024 Water as Leverage City Champion Challenge.
Before this programme, I used to dread any time it rained. This programme has changed my perception. Now I am seeing water as a resource.
Get involved
Interested in bringing the WaL Academy to your city, or exploring how the WaL approach can strengthen your work? Get in touch with Robert Proos, WaL Programme Advisor at the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO).
