Every year, dredging vessels pull some 3.6 million cubic metres of sediment from the waters around Barranquilla, where Colombia’s Magdalena River meets the Caribbean Sea. Almost all of it is currently discarded. An ambitious collaboration between the Netherlands and Colombia is working to change that.
The project was brought together under the Partners for Water programme and led by Arcadis in consortium with Colombian engineering firm JESyCA, Fundación Herencia Ambiental Caribe and Netics. The goal was straightforward: partner with Colombia to identify the building blocks to construct the legal and procedural foundation needed to put dredged material to beneficial and sustainable use. After a year of intensive work, the project formally closed with an event in Bogotá on 26 March 2026.
A resource hiding in plain sight
In Colombia, dredging is not optional. The country’s rivers carry enormous sediment loads, constantly depositing material in ports and navigational channels. The Magdalena River alone drains a vast Andean watershed. Without regular dredging, trade along these waterways effectively stops.
While dredging is routine, nothing useful is done with what is removed. “Currently, it’s disposed of,” says Pilar Vasquez, a biologist at Fundación Herencia Ambiental Caribe and one of the project’s lead researchers. Disposal follows a defined set of quality assessments and upon completion, the sediment is sent to designated sites.
It’s a significant waste. About half of the material typically dredged is either clean or sufficiently clean to reuse. Once dried, the sediment’s physical and chemical characteristics are similar to extracted raw material and sometimes even better, offering nutrients that can support nature restoration.
In the Netherlands, instead of importing clay, clayey dredging material is being used to reinforce sea dykes and to construct new islands, combining improving water quality and boosting biodiversity (Marker Wadden). In addition, compressed dredging material has been shaped into artificial reef elements that restore underwater habitats (GEOWALL). The shift in thinking is not complicated rather than asking where to dump dredged material, instead you can ask where can it go to do the most good.
Learning from ten countries
The first phase of the project looked closely at the Dutch experience. The Netherlands has spent decades refining its approach to dredging material with one principle standing out as particularly interesting. In the Netherlands, permissible contamination limits are set according to what the material will actually be used for and not just the sediment’s quality in isolation. “This is very important,” Pilar says. “It differs from many other countries, where limits are established, regardless of how you’re going to use the sediment.”
The team reviewed regulatory frameworks from ten jurisdictions, searching for examples that resembled Colombia’s tropical context. Dutch standards, developed for a small, temperate, geologically uniform country cannot always be directly applied. Colombia is something else entirely with enormous diversity in terms of geology, climate, ecology and living organisms. For example, what would apply for the Caribbean coast would not necessarily apply to the Pacific coast or the Amazon basin.
Two regions ultimately emerged as the best references: Florida (USA) and Brazil. Both are tropical regions that have developed their own use-based approaches to sediment. The Colombian Ministry of Environment’s plan is to take these two as a starting point, setting initial thresholds while continuing to gather local data to refine them over time.
A case study in Barranquilla
The next phase looked at what beneficial use could look like in practice in the Colombian context. The team focused on Barranquilla, capital of the Department of Atlántico situated at the mouth of the Magdalena river and one of Colombia’s most important maritime gateways.
The team carried out an assessment of the physical and chemical properties of dredged sediments alongside volumes and frequencies. These findings were fed into workshops with a broad group of stakeholders including: national ministries, local environmental authorities, ports, universities, military marine researchers and scientists from a national park just along the coast.
From this process, six conceptual designs emerged. Four addressed coastal erosion protection a real and urgent problem along the Department of Atlántico, where a combination of natural dynamics and impact of engineering works have disrupted natural sediment processes and left stretches of coastline exposed. The remaining two looked at soil enrichment and the production of construction materials.
Throughout the process, the project team emphasised that feasibility depends on context. “Distance is a key factor,” Pilar observes. “If the application site is too far from the dredging location, it simply isn’t economically viable. You have to look at it integrally incorporating the technical aspects, economic feasibility and community interests.”
A genuinely two-way exchange
The most important outcome of the project was not captured in five of the technical reports produced. It was this: knowledge exchange only works when it goes both ways.
“I want to really emphasise the two-way nature of this,” says Didi Gieling, Policy Officer at the Dutch Embassy in Bogotá. “From the beginning, I was genuinely impressed by the critical questions from all the counterparts, the scrutiny, the thinking-along.”
The collaboration between the Netherlands’ Government, Colombia’s Ministries of Environment and Transport and the National Department of Planning (DNP was formalised in a memorandum of understanding and has been running since 2017. This project, however brought the relationship to a different level.
Five training sessions were held over the course of the year, including two of them in Barranquilla. These brought together national policymakers, local experts, port operators and environmental authorities who deal with the Magdalena River every single day.
“One thing is sending a document,” Didi says. “Quite another is actually sitting down together and discussing it. Seeing what the interests are and which role other institutions need to play. Because you quickly realise it doesn’t stop at the ministries. So many other institutions have to come along for this to actually work.”
What comes next
The legal framework itself is still under development. The Ministry of Environment is preparing a decree that will lay the regulatory groundwork for reuse of dredging material, a process that is gaining traction and informed directly by the work the consortium has done. Full implementation on the ground will take time.
This year the Netherlands and Colombia mark 200 years of bilateral diplomatic relations and the project’s legacy is already taking shape with a new network of connections between Dutch and Colombian water professionals, researchers, ports, environmental institutions and businesses. As Colombia heads into presidential elections this June the network is built to last beyond government changes and will create opportunities for both Dutch expertise and Colombian industry alike.
Meanwhile, the sediment in the Magdalena River continues to move. The question is no longer whether Colombia can find a better use for it, but how quickly the country can build the systems to make that possible.
Please find here the project reports:
Final reports in English:
E1 – Key insights from the Netherlands on dredging (re)use approval [pdf]
E2 – Analysis Netherlands and other countries requirements for beneficial use of dredged sediments [pdf]
E3 – Assessment of the quality of dredged marine sediments in the port area of Barranquilla [pdf]
E4 – Procedural guidelines dredged marine sediments in Colombia [pdf]
E5 – Case study dredged sediments in Barranquilla [pdf]
Informes finales en español:
E1 – Información clave de los Países Bajos sobre (re)uso de sedimentos [pdf]
E2 – Análisis de requisitos de calidad uso sedimentos dragados en Países Bajos y otros países [pdf]
E3 – Evaluación de la calidad física y química de los sedimentos dragados en la zona portuaria de Barranquilla [pdf]
E4 – Directrices de procedimiento sedimentos marinos dragados en Colombia [pdf]
E5 – Estudio de caso aprovechamiento de sedimentos dragados en Barranquilla [pdf]
In Dalat, Vietnam, a Dutch–Vietnamese consortium led by Fresh Studio has completed a 30-month pilot to improve water management in greenhouse horticulture. Supported by Partners for Water, the project introduced drain water collection and UV disinfection to reduce nutrient losses. The results show savings of up to 40 percent for fertiliser and 35 percent lower water use for participating pepper growers. René van Rensen from Fresh Studio explains how the system works and what it takes to scale it.
In the highlands of Dalat, greenhouses stretch across the hillsides. Inside, vegetables are grown in substrate rather than soil – a method that offers higher yields and better control over water and nutrient supply. Yet beneath that efficiency, a hidden loss takes place. “When you grow in substrate, crops need 20 to 30 percent more water,” says Van Rensen. “Without a collection system, that excess water drains away and is lost.” In the Netherlands, this water is typically recirculated in closed systems.
For greenhouse growers in Vietnam, improving water management is not only about sustainability, but also about reducing input costs and securing long-term production. As fertiliser prices rise and water resources come under increasing pressure, practical solutions such as drain water reuse are becoming increasingly relevant.
To address this, the consortium – Fresh Studio, Ridder, Royal Brinkman and HollandDoor – introduced a closed-loop drain water system. By capturing, disinfecting and reusing drain water, the team aimed to improve water management while reducing both costs and environmental impact.
Turning drain water into a resource
In substrate systems, part of the irrigation water flows out of the pots as drain water. In the Netherlands, this water must be collected and reused by law. In Vietnam, this is not yet common practice. “The water just goes into the ground,” Van Rensen explains. “All the nutrients go with it. Eventually, they can end up in groundwater or surface water. This means that water is wasted and pollution occurs at the same time.” Simultaneously, water itself is rarely paid for. “If farmers need more water, they simply drill deeper,” he says. “Ten years ago, farmers would pump at 30 metres. Now they go down to 100 metres.”
The real incentive for reusing drain water lies elsewhere: “Fertilisers are one of the biggest cost components in horticulture,” Van Rensen notes. “In substrate-based greenhouse vegetable production, they can account for up to 40 percent of input costs.” Plants do not use all the nutrients in the fertiliser solution. By collecting and reusing nutrient-rich drain water, farmers can significantly reduce those costs. “That means they can recover their investment within two to three years.”
Proven results accelerate adoption
At first, growers were cautious. The full installation costs between 75,000 and 100,000 US dollars. “That is a serious investment,” Van Rensen acknowledges. “Farmers are understandably hesitant. Yet once the results became visible, interest grew more quickly.”
Encouraged by the results, both participating farmers expanded the area covered by the drain water collection system at their own expense. “During the project, this increased to full coverage on one farm (1 hectare) and to around 50 percent (1.5 hectares) on the other,” says Van Rensen. The grower with three hectares is continuing to expand the system, aiming for full coverage by 2027. “In Vietnam, farmers can be sceptical,” Van Rensen says. “But if they see something works, they often move fast.”
Beyond the greenhouse
The project also feeds into a broader discussion about water management in Dalat. Rapid greenhouse development has contributed to local flooding during heavy rainfall. “Greenhouses are sometimes seen as part of the problem,” Van Rensen says. “But they can also be part of the solution.” If each greenhouse were required to capture and store rainwater – an approach already widely applied in Dutch greenhouse horticulture – it could both reduce flood peaks and decrease groundwater extraction, he argues. The consortium is sharing these ideas with the Netherlands Embassy in order to explore possible policy dialogue. “Changes in regulation take time,” he says. “But projects like this show what is possible.”
Building trust for scaling up
For Van Rensen, one lesson stands out. “For solutions to be adopted by farmers, it is very important to demonstrate clear results,” he says. “A pilot site that farmers can visit is therefore very helpful.” Equally important, he emphasises, is local presence. “A strong local partner and a hands-on team are essential. Without people on the ground who understand the local context and can solve problems quickly, implementation will be difficult.”
Building on these experiences, the consortium now aims to see two to five additional growers adopt the system in the coming years. By combining Dutch water technology with local entrepreneurship, the project shows how improved water management can deliver both environmental and economic gains. As Van Rensen concludes: “If the results are clear and the system proves reliable, farmers will decide for themselves.”
Vietnam is one of the delta countries where Partners for Water works together with local partners to address water challenges. Are you working in Vietnam or interested in exploring opportunities there? Visit our Vietnam delta country page to learn more.
In western Kenya, the Nyando River catchment stretches from the highlands of Nandi County, down towards Lake Victoria. It is a landscape where farming, water and livelihoods are closely connected. However, flooding, land degradation and changing rainfall patterns have reduced arable land and are putting growing pressure on water and food security for many communities living within the catchment. Trust 2 Impact, supported by Partners for Water, aims to address these challenges through a systems approach combined with innovative financing models.
Working together with local communities, governments, knowledge institutions and partners, the initiative is developing a long-term programme for landscape restoration. Pilot activities are currently taking place in the Nyando River catchment, with a focus on agroforestry and riparian rehabilitation. We spoke with Ed Vermeulen, Managing Director of Trust 2 Impact and local community member Maurice Onyango to explore how the challenges are experienced on the ground and how Trust 2 Impact is working to address them.
Living in the middle of the catchment
Maurice is a small-scale farmer from the Awasi area in the Nyando River catchment. Like many others in his community, his livelihood depends directly on the land and on the river that runs through it. Located between the highlands upstream and Lake Victoria downstream, the area is increasingly affected by seasonal flooding. During periods of heavy rainfall, water from the upper catchment flows rapidly downstream. “We are in the middle,” Maurice explains, “when it rains in the mountains, the river breaks its banks and washes away homesteads, livestock and crops.”
Until a few years ago, farming could still provide some extra income. “With the continuous flooding, the size of the farm has been reduced,” Maurice says. “We used to sell produce. Now most people farm mainly for family survival.”
The effects of climate change also affect Lake Victoria itself. Invasive water hyacinth, thriving under current climate conditions, has taken over large parts of the shoreline. “It blocks fishermen and affects the fish we used to have,” Maurice shares. “We used to get big fish that could feed several homesteads. Today we get only very small ones.”
What we are seeing here is not just a local issue. Climate change, together with land, water and forest degradation, is cascading through entire systems. It is already having a measurable economic impact, estimated at around two per cent of GDP each year across the region.
From ambition to action
Trust 2 Impact set out with the ambition to address the interconnected challenges of water and food systems across the wider Lake Victoria region, driven by the conviction that fragmented, short-term interventions are insufficient for complex, systemic problems. As the programme developed, however, the team realised that this broad scope was difficult to operationalise. “At first our scope was too wide,” says Ed. “All the investors believed in the aspiration, none of them believed such a scope was manageable from the start.”
As a result, Trust 2 Impact chose a clearly defined starting point: the rehabilitation of the Nyando River catchment. The programme is starting with pilot activities focused on agroforestry and riparian rehabilitation, aimed at restoring degraded land, reducing upstream flood risks and improving soil and water conditions. The ambition is to restore 60,000 hectares.
“In parallel, we are developing financing models that can support long-term investment in catchment restoration,” Ed adds. “We aim to bring different types of funders together in a way that safeguards the social purpose of the programme. The idea is that those who create value through ecosystem restoration benefit most, and that these models can be replicated as the approach scales to other regions.”
Working with complexity: applying a systemic approach
According to Ed, the challenges facing the Nyando River catchment are not isolated problems but interconnected systemic issues that need to be addressed at ecosystem scale. “When ecosystems are under pressure, communities become more vulnerable and resources start to run out. That is why you must address the root causes,” he says. “Our systems approach allows us to look at the rehabilitation of an entire ecosystem with all its complexity. But this requires moving beyond organisational silos.”
He adds that this type of collaboration does not always come naturally. “We are so used to working within the protective walls of our own silo,” he notes. “The entire approach is rooted in trusted collaborations, involving all levels of society, where partners work together on one shared mission and shared key performance indicators.”
Communities at the heart of value creation
“The community has received our programme with open arms,” says Ed. “They participate in all the meetings where we ask for their input.” This involvement reflects Trust 2 Impact’s approach, which places communities at the centre of the programme and views engagement as an ongoing, iterative process.
When Trust 2 Impact was first introduced in Awasi, the response from the people was hopeful. “The first thing that came to my mind was that help is on the way to stop the flooding,” Maurice recalls. “They gave us tree seedlings along the river and for agroforestry,” he explains. “They also gave us fruit seedlings, and agronomists showed us how to plant and take care of them.”
According to Maurice, this initial support is already making a difference. “The information and technical input we receive has helped put food on the table,” he says. “We can see better harvests.” For Trust 2 Impact, this link between restoration and shared benefit is fundamental. “In our regenerative enterprise, we are all shareholders,” Ed explains.
Success measured beyond numbers
In the end, success will be measured across social, environmental, economic and governance dimensions. “When communities can lift themselves out of poverty and ecosystem functions are restored, we know we are on the right path,” says Ed. For Maurice, success is tangible and immediate. “When flooding stops, the land that was lost to water can be reclaimed,” he says. “That means a larger area to farm, and an abundance of food.”
This is the first of a series of three articles. Stay tuned for more in-depth insights.
Water and sanitation infrastructure is usually framed as a public service or a climate-resilience necessity, but it can also be seen as something more: a vast portfolio of long-lived public assets that societies must steward over generations.
This article was originally published on The Water Diplomat website.
As the Global Water Bankruptcy report published this week makes clear, the world has moved beyond a temporary water crisis into a structural condition in which many water systems can no longer recover to historical baselines. This reality demands a fundamental shift in how water infrastructure is planned, financed, and managed. A 2024 joint report by ten Multilateral Development Banks reinforces this picture, showing that water security investments remain inadequate, fragmented, and too often fail to translate into long-lasting infrastructure performance.
At the heart of this problem lies what the Dutch Water Authorities and their partners describe as the Build–Neglect–Rebuild (BNR) cycle. Water systems are constructed, then gradually neglected due to inadequate operations and maintenance (O&M), leading to premature deterioration and eventually costly repairs or reconstruction.
The causes are well known: weak long-term asset management strategies, insufficient funding and human resources for O&M, limited data and technical capacity, and governance arrangements that do not prioritise lifecycle performance.
The consequences extend far beyond higher long-run costs. Service disruptions undermine progress on Sustainable Development Goal 6 and erode public trust in water institutions. At the macro level, the maintenance obligation alone can be significant: World Bank estimates suggest that maintaining existing infrastructure may require annual allocations of 2.5-3.7% of GDP, depending on income level – a scale that helps explain why maintenance is often deferred when budgets tighten.
Water and sanitation infrastructure – pumping stations, levees, reservoirs, treatment plants, networks, and coastal defences – embodies enormous economic, environmental, and social value. Together with the water resources they manage, these systems form a distinctive water asset class: capital intensive, long lived, and deeply intertwined with the natural water cycle. Managing them effectively therefore requires an approach that looks beyond construction to performance, maintenance, and lifecycle value.
This article sheds light on solutions in addressing these gaps, essential if investments in water infrastructure are to deliver resilient, equitable, and sustainable services over time, particularly as the international community looks toward the 2026 UN Water Conference as a moment to reset the global water agenda.
Blue Deal Mozambique
Building versus managing infrastructure
Over the past decades, countries have poured resources into building the physical backbone of water security. These assets are essential to economic development and public health. Yet the global challenge is no longer only about what we build – it is increasingly about what we manage. A persistent imbalance sits at the heart of water infrastructure economics: capital expenditure is visible, fundable, and politically attractive – while the ongoing work of operations, maintenance and renewal is often underprovided. An OECD study on financing water points out that tariffs are frequently set below what is needed to recover the costs of operations and maintenance (O&M), and that in water supply and sanitation, capital costs account for roughly half of total service provision costs – meaning that expenditure on Operations and Maintenance (O&M) is not a marginal add-on, but a major share of the lifecycle cost of reliable service.
The Blue Deal: towards effective asset management
In 2018, the Dutch Water Authorities (DWA), together with the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Infrastructure and Water Management launched the Blue Deal, an international programme working with partners in 15 countries towards clean, safe and sufficient water.
The Blue Deal’s approach to asset management covers the entire lifecycle of infrastructure assets. This requires long-term strategic planning, sustained investment, and clear choices on priorities. Similarly, this lifecycle-based approach is also embedded in the Dutch drinking water companies (VEI), Partners for Water, and VNG International, which each play a distinct but complementary role in strengthening asset management, governance systems, and the financial and institutional foundations needed for long-term infrastructure performance.
Tackling build-neglect-repair in practice: aligned interventions in Mozambique
Breaking the BNR cycle requires more than isolated projects or single actors. In Mozambique, Dutch water – and municipal organisations are working in close alignment – not under one banner, but towards a shared objective: addressing the governance, financial, and asset-management weaknesses that cause water infrastructure to deteriorate long before the end of its design life. Rather than focusing on construction alone, these efforts concentrate on the systems that allow infrastructure to function, adapt, and endure.
From building assets to managing lifecycles
A first line of intervention focuses on operation, maintenance, and asset management, as is visible through the Blue Deal Mozambique partnership with the Municipality of Beira and the Beira Autonomous Sanitation Unit (SASB). Together, they are introducing structured maintenance planning for drainage canals and reservoirs, routine inspections, and systemwide assessments of urban drainage performance. In collaboration with VNG International (VNG International – the international cooperation agency of the Association of Netherlands Municipalities), dedicated O&M budgets and asset-specific maintenance plans aim to ensure that more than €150 million in flood and drainage investments continue to protect Beira’s residents over their full lifecycle – rather than slipping into disrepair after initial construction.
Making O&M financially viable
Another intervention addresses a core governance bottleneck: financial sustainability. Here, VNG International focuses on strengthening local revenue systems, including tariffs and municipal taxation. Partners for Water also plays a complementary role in this financial transition. Through the Beira Land Administration System phase 2 (BLAS2) project, Partners for Water supports the development of a sustainable land administration system that provides reliable property information – a foundation for improving the municipality’s own-source revenues, particularly in the area of property tax. BLAS2 is closely linked to the Sustainable Development through improved Local Governance (SDLG) programme of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which targets the broader strengthening of Beira’s tax system.
As a result of these combined efforts, property tax revenues have increased by more than €1.6 million, with a substantial share earmarked for the operation and maintenance of water-related infrastructure. This directly links improved land administration and fiscal reform to better-performing drainage, sanitation, and water systems.
Strengthening institutions, not just infrastructure
Technical improvements are reinforced through sustained institutional strengthening. Blue Deal experts support SASB in clarifying roles, building technical capacity, and estimating realistic long-term O&M funding needs across primary, secondary, and tertiary drainage systems.
In parallel, VNG International, in coordination with RVO/Partners for Water, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Dutch Embassy, and municipal and national partners, contributes to institutional reform and alignment across levels of government.
Since 2019, VNG International has also facilitated structured round-table dialogues with national institutions, the Municipality of Beira, and international partners such as the World Bank, Invest International, the EU Delegation, and German and French development banks. These sessions, organised under the SASB-PRO project, provide a platform to jointly analyse financial and institutional bottlenecks and to develop coordinated solutions for sustainable O&M of public drainage and sanitation infrastructure in Beira. By bringing national authorities, utilities, municipal actors and donors around the same table, these round-tables help to align mandates, strengthen accountability mechanisms, and anchor local improvements within a broader national system.
A major contribution from Partners for Water is the establishment of the Plataforma de Resiliência e Educação da Água de Beira (PREAB), established in 2025 by Beira’s cooperation partners, including the Municipality, SASB, FACE (NGO), Universidade Zambeze, Instituto Industrial e Comercial da Beira, and Young Africa.
PREAB is conceived as a long-term, locally anchored mechanism for technical capacity building, knowledge management, and institutional reinforcement. Rather than functioning as a short-term project, the platform acts as a collaborative technical hub where utilities, universities, training institutes, government bodies, private sector actors, and civil society can jointly analyse problems and co-develop solutions. This consolidates operational competence and ensures that the gains achieved through infrastructure investments and revenue reforms are institutionally sustained.
Data and digitalisation as enablers of stewardship
Reliable asset management depends on knowing what exists, where it is, and in what condition. In Mozambique, VEI supports AIAS (the national Administration for Water and Sanitation Infrastructure) in transitioning to mWater, a digital asset management platform. Due to the wide variety of operators, low levels of digitalisation, and limited GIS capacity, centralized insight into the assets, connections, and operational behaviour of the systems was largely absent until recently.
In 2025, a Proof of Concept was conducted with approximately 230 connections. All main assets and customer connections were registered using GPS, linked to existing data from the Eticadata billing system. Local operators can now collect data autonomously, even offline, while providing national authorities with a consolidated overview of assets, maintenance needs, and operational risks. This data backbone is essential for planning, prioritisation, and transparency. The next step is scaling up to other systems and establishing a small GIS/mWater support unit within AIAS to ensure this is structurally secured.
Engaging communities through locally led approaches
Finally, breaking the BNR cycle requires governance reform that is locally led and socially embedded. In Beira, community-based maintenance activities supported through the Blue Deal enable local residents to take an active role in cleaning and maintaining drainage canals. These efforts reduce flood risks while strengthening local ownership, awareness, and accountability, and providing employment opportunities. Crucially, such locally led interventions connect community action to formal municipal systems, reinforcing the idea that sustainable infrastructure performance depends not only on technical expertise, but on locally anchored stewardship.
Breaking the cycle requires systemic change and changing mindsets
Breaking the BNR cycle is ultimately less about building more infrastructure and more about governing better: securing sustainable finance, managing assets over their full lifetimes, strengthening institutions, and embedding learning and adaptation into everyday practice. This cannot be achieved by any single organisation. Progress emerges when municipalities, national authorities, utilities, communities, and international partners – including Dutch Water Authorities (Blue Deal), VNG International, Partners for Water, VEI and many others – work in alignment, each addressing part of the governance, financial, technical, and social systems that underpin water services.
To enable this shift at scale, the water sector needs systemic change. Politicians and decision-makers must rethink how they talk and act about infrastructure investments, valuing longevity, reliability, and lifecycle performance as much as – or more than – new construction. A functional system that operates reliably for 25 years is a success story.
Achieving this change in narrative requires commitments to securing sustainable financing, clarifying roles and responsibilities, strengthening governance and institutional capacity and embedding knowledge, monitoring, digitalisation, and community participation into daily practice.
When these elements come together, water infrastructure can deliver the long-term value it is designed for – supporting resilient, equitable and sustainable services for generations to come.
Did you know that billions of people still wash their clothes by hand? That whole cities are being designed to float? And that a machine in Amsterdam makes water out of thin air? These are the people making it happen.
Water problems can feel abstract – until a dam breaks, a tap runs dry, or women spend three hours of their day doing laundry by hand. The people working on water solutions know this better than anyone. They are engineers, diplomats, hydrologists and development bankers, and what unites them is a refusal to accept the status quo.
This article is based on the ‘Wet Breakthroughs!’ episode of Waterproof, a podcast by Partners for Water.
Building where others wouldn’t dare
Rutger de Graaf has spent two decades designing buildings that float. As co-founder of Blue21, he sees floating cities not as a distant vision but as a practical obligation; a response to rising seas and rapid urbanisation in delta regions where hundreds of millions already live. He is now working on a floating social housing complex made up of 45 apartments in Zwolle, bringing the technology to lower-income groups. The obstacles, he argues, are rarely technical. “The biggest crisis is our lack of imagination.”
But imagination alone does not build cities. The systems around an innovation need to be just as ready as the innovation itself.
The unglamorous work that makes everything else possible
Mary Matthews, Global Water Lead ad interim at UNDP, works in that space. Her focus is governance: getting ministries, regulators and investors aligned. Without it, even the most promising solutions stall. One example she highlights is the Women in Water Diplomacy Network – a programme that trains women mediators to resolve water disputes at community and transboundary level. It builds on the insight that inclusive dialogue produces more durable solutions. “When governance works, the money follows.”
Governance creates the conditions. What happens next depends on the quality of the decisions made within them, and that requires seeing the full picture.
Seeing the whole city at once
Seeing the full picture is exactly what Florian Witsenburg’s company Tygron makes possible. Their digital twins – virtual models of cities and landscapes – let planners and emergency responders test scenarios before they unfold in reality. In Nijmegen, one such model revealed the cumulative impact of 90 simultaneous housing developments, breaking a city-wide building freeze. When the Nova Kakhovka dam in Ukraine was destroyed in 2023, Tigron modelled the resulting flood within half an hour, guiding aid organisations into an active war zone.
Digital twins can map a crisis in real time. However, in some parts of the world, the most urgent problem does not show up on any map. There simply is no water.
Making water from nothing
In places where there is no water, Amsterdam-based Solaq pulls water directly from the air using a wet desiccant process. Co-founder Reuben Moore explains that each unit produces 2,000 litres per day, fits in a shipping container and runs on solar energy or waste heat. The first pilots are running in Mexico, Spain and Brazil, including communities where over 1.5 million people depend on water trucks for water that is not even safe to drink. “We are first focusing on creating a source of water security for places where there simply is no other alternative.”
Having water is one thing. The daily reality it enables – or doesn’t enable – is quite another.
The overlooked burden
For Tanja Huizer, Senior Water Resilience Specialist at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), that daily reality is laundry. Huizer has spent years drawing attention to this seemingly simple household task. She shares that between four and five billion people still wash clothes by hand. Women spend roughly 20% of their active time – around three hours daily – on this work alone. The ADB’s Laundry Movement addresses this. It tackles environmental pollution, builds public-private partnerships and focuses on social innovation. The goal is better conditions, with dignity intact. “We have had washing machines for over a hundred years. So let’s allow everybody to benefit from them now.”
The scale of water challenges can feel paralysing. But as these five innovators show, the responses come in every shape and size – from city-wide floating infrastructure to a machine in a shipping container to the simple act of doing laundry with dignity. What they share is the conviction that no one needs to solve everything. Each piece matters. Together, they add up to a waterproof future.
Listen to the podcast
“I did it. I did it.” It is August 2025, at the edge of Stockholm. A group of World Water Week delegates has just run into a lake. Among them is Waterproof podcast host Tracy Metz. Laughing and slightly breathless, she emerges from the water, happy of having taken the cold plunge.
The swim marks the first UN World Lakes Day. It is a celebration, but also a reminder. As Metz notes, “lakes everywhere are heavily polluted.” The question is no longer whether water quality is under pressure, but how communities choose to respond. Across continents, a growing movement is doing just that. They are reclaiming rivers and lakes not only as infrastructure to manage, but as public spaces to swim in and, ultimately, to drink from.
In the Waterproof podcast episode ‘Drinkable Rivers, Swimmable Cities’, produced by Partners for Water, Metz speaks with organisers, writers and artists who are rethinking our relationship with water – from urban swimming initiatives to legal recognition of rivers as living entities.
Swimming as a standard
In the run-up to the Paris 2024 Olympics, the Seine was cleaned so that athletes could compete in it. What once seemed unrealistic suddenly became visible: a capital city investing heavily to make a river safe for swimming. The Swimmable Cities platform emerged in the run-up to these Olympics.
“Just before the Olympics, we launched the Swimmable Cities Charter,” explains co-founder Matt Sykes. “It promotes communities’ right to swim, but also the rights of nature.”
Today, more than 150 organisations across 80 cities have signed the charter. For Sykes, swimming is more than just a hobby or sport, it is also a political signal. If people can safely enter the water, then wastewater systems, monitoring and governance must be functioning.
At a time of polarised climate debates, he argues that water offers common ground. “This practice of swimming and connection to waterways is able to cross political divides. We see this in different cities around the world,” he says. “As our traditional knowledge carers teach us, water connects us all. It’s our lifeblood.”
From swimmable to drinkable
For Li An Phoa, founder of Drinkable Rivers, the ambition goes further. She walked the entire 370 kilometres of the Scheldt, joined by 1,300 people and hundreds of children conducting citizen science. The aim was not symbolic protest but collective ownership.
During the walk, local leaders drafted a River Intent declaration stating that all those who live, work and use the Scheldt river basin express a shared dream of a drinkable Scheldt. Two municipalities have since signed. It signals the start of a concrete shift from aspiration to policy.
Phoa’s philosophy is direct and pragmatic: “Don’t wait for a mandate. Your care, your love for your place can have a tremendous impact.”
Why swimmable and drinkable matter
Part of the strength of these movements lies in the clarity of their ambition. “Swimmable” and “drinkable” are not abstract policy terms. They are standards that anyone can understand. Either you can safely enter the water, or you cannot. Either you can drink it, or you cannot.
By framing water management in these terms, complex discussions about treatment plants, discharge permits and monitoring data become tangible. A swimmable river signals that systems are functioning. A drinkable river signals a higher level of trust – in regulation, enforcement and long-term commitment.
Rethinking the status of rivers
Another strand of this movement comes from writer Robert MacFarlane. He does not call himself an activist, but a campaigner and a writer. In his book Is a River Alive?, MacFarlane explores how we think about rivers in law, language and culture.
“We are quite content that corporations have rights,” he observes. “But a river who’s flowed for 10,000 years? No, absolutely not.”
In England and Wales, he notes, “not a single river is in good overall health, 0% in good chemical health.” The ecological crisis is evident, yet so is resistance. “Hope is a discipline,” Macfarlane says. “It arises from the hard, organised work of change making.”
That disciplined work takes many forms. In The Hague, the Embassy of the North Sea explores what it would mean to recognise a sea as a political actor. Its goal, says sound artist Harpo ’t Hart, is that “the North Sea would eventually become its own political person. With its own interests and its own rights.”
Beyond infrastructure
What connects these initiatives is a shared shift in perspective. Rivers and seas are no longer treated solely as channels to manage or resources to optimise. They are public spaces to enter, ecosystems to restore, and – increasingly – entities whose interests must be represented.
Clean water is the result of public engagement, political consistency and legal imagination. As Metz reflects, the people driving this work “are not politicians or officials. They’re people like you and me who feel that they need to do something.”
In a world facing intensifying water challenges, the ambition for swimmable cities and drinkable rivers reflects a broader question: how do we choose to live with water – and who speaks on its behalf?
💬 What do you think: should swimmable or drinkable standards become clearer benchmarks in urban water policy?
🎧 This article is based on the Waterproof podcast episode ‘Drinkable Rivers, Swimmable Cities’, produced by Partners for Water. Listen to the podcast here.
Listen to the podcast“You were right – it’s raining.” A farmer in Ghana sends this message after receiving a WhatsApp weather alert.
This simple exchange represents something much larger. It’s the final link in a chain connecting satellites, AI, and communities that increasingly need timely information to adapt to a changing climate.
The scale of the challenge
2024 was the hottest year on record in at least 175 years, resulting in 125 million people displaced by water-related disasters and economic losses exceeding $200 billion annually. As floods and droughts intensify, early warning systems are becoming more and more essential.
For the Waterproof podcast episode Early Warnings!, host Tracy Metz spoke with innovators working on these challenges daily – from social media monitoring in the Philippines to satellite forecasting in southern Africa. What connects them is not only their focus on early warning systems, but also support from Partners for Water.
Technology meets reality
In the podcast episode, Jurjen Wagemaker of FloodTags describes a moment that illustrates the value of early warning systems. His team had just delivered their monitoring system to an operation centre in the Philippines. Wagemaker shares: “We were in the room next to the operations centre, and all of a sudden there was a big activity next door. Everybody was pointing to the new system. I went into the operation room and I asked, what’s happening?” Apparently, FloodTags had detected flooding that the local authorities hadn’t yet registered. Within minutes, the operation centre was able to verify the information and begin coordinating their response.
FloodTags collects data from social media platforms worldwide, processing around 5 million observations monthly and identifying about ten significant floods daily. Why social media? Because floods begin on the ground, and that’s often where reality surfaces first.
For instance, in Semarang, Indonesia, social media revealed why a critical pump wasn’t working during a flood: the key to the pump house was missing. These operational realities provide not only real-time information for immediate response, but also insights that can improve future processes.
When data creates trust
Sindy Mthimkhulu, Executive Secretary of INMACOM, manages shared water resources between South Africa, Eswatini, and Mozambique – 45,000 square kilometres serving 3.5 million people. “When water is released upstream and someone downstream isn’t aware, they can be caught off guard,” she explained. “Early warning allows us to alert people before they’re at risk.”
The solution they use is called GLOW – the Global Water Availability and Demand Forecasting Service. Developed by Dutch companies Hydrologic and FutureWater with Partners for Water support, GLOW uses satellite data to predict water conditions up to three months ahead.
GLOW does not only provide forecasting. It also supports building trust. Thanks to this innovative system, all three countries access the same real-time data through a shared platform. When water levels change, everyone sees it simultaneously. “We’re not fighting over water anymore,” Sindy noted. “When Mozambique sees less water arriving, they can also see it’s not being held upstream – it’s simply not available. That transparency builds trust.”
From data to local action
Advanced forecasting technology is valuable, but it only becomes useful when it reaches the people who need it in a form they can act upon. That might mean a WhatsApp message telling a farmer in Ghana about approaching rain, a text alert advising urban residents to move to higher ground, or an announcement broadcast at a local market.
Dorien Lugt of HKV works on urban flooding early warning systems in countries like Ethiopia and Ghana. She describes the work as “a process, not a project – step-by-step development of better early warning capacity.”
That process involves three interconnected stages. First, establishing the data infrastructure for accurate forecasting. Second, operationalising those forecasts within government systems. Third, ensuring the warnings reach communities through appropriate channels. In some places that’s WhatsApp, in others it’s loudspeakers at markets or announcements through religious institutions. What matters is that it’s effectively tailored to how people actually receive and trust information.
The opportunity to respond
It’s worth acknowledging that early warning systems exist because we’re responding to climate change, not yet solving it. These technologies address the symptoms of a warming planet rather than the underlying causes. But as extreme weather events continue to increase in frequency and severity, they represent a crucial part of our adaptation strategy.
Whether it’s a farmer checking WhatsApp, someone verifying river levels, or communities preparing for floods, the need is the same: information enabling timely action. Early warning provides the opportunity to respond before crisis strikes. In a changing climate, that opportunity makes all the difference.
🎧 This article is based on the Waterproof podcast episode Early Warning!, produced by Partners for Water. Listen to the full episode for the complete stories about impactful early warning systems.
Listen to the podcastIn the neighbourhoods along the Juan Angola Canal, a downpour is rarely without consequences. Streets can flood within minutes, and the city has spent years trying to bring urban growth back in step with the landscape. With phase 3 of Water as Leverage, this should take shape for the first time, with detailed designs and implementation roadmaps for paving stones, culverts and mangrove restoration. Furthermore, these plans are genuinely bankable and ready to implement.
What is Water as Leverage?
Water as Leverage (WaL) is a Dutch approach that reverses the usual sequence: rather than having a technical plan first and then looking for support and funding, this approach brings together knowledge, governance, financing, and communities from day one. In multidisciplinary teams of Colombian, Dutch, and international experts, early sketches grow into concrete designs ready for further development.
“It’s the integrated perspective – physical system, ecology, economy, employment, and financing – that makes WaL truly unique,” explains Michel Zuijderwijk from Witteveen+Bos. “You’re not only designing for water, but also for the city and its residents.” Witteveen+Bos is the lead partner of the Roots of Cartagena team, which has been working within the Water as Leverage Cartagena programme.
What is the current status of the WaL Cartagena programme?
During phase 1 which started in February 2023, these two teams explored Cartagena’s bottlenecks and opportunities regarding water and climate adaptation. This produced an initial city outlook and a selection of hotspots where water, public space, and quality of life intersect. At the end of this phase, eleven concepts were on the longlist.
During phase 2, beginning at the end of September that year, this was narrowed down to five serious project candidates and technically underpinned to pre-feasibility. Five local design workshops with local stakeholders proved decisive: specific areas of the Juan Angola Canal were given the green light to continue towards a third phase, with nature-based measures and practical interventions that are easy to scale up.
Colombian delegation’s visit to the Netherlands: three lessons
As the kick-off for the third and final phase of this programme, a Colombian delegation visited the Netherlands to look at waterworks, nature-inclusive projects, and maintenance regimes, such as the Sand Engine near Kijkduin (beach nourishment as coastal protection), Benthemplein Water Square in Rotterdam (urban water storage), and the Marker Wadden islands (nature restoration built with dredged sediment). Wilmer Iriarte Restrepo, Cartagena’s Secretary of Infrastructure, named several key insights to take into the next phase:
- Link flood resilience to public space.
“Look at flood resilience and public space as one entity. Maintenance thus becomes logical and you create pleasant places that residents actually use.” - Let nature do the work.
“From ‘sand motor’ to sluices: harness natural processes and the topography to filter and direct water. Not dogmatically, but flexibly: what works here may work differently elsewhere.” - Keep solutions simple and scale them up.
“Sometimes the best intervention is to give streets a little more slope and install a narrow gutter in the drainage system. Simple in itself, but if applied a thousand times, the cumulative impact is substantial.”
This down-to-earth view aligns with the WaL method: nature-based solutions where possible, hard interventions where necessary. “NBS are never one-size-fits-all,” says Zuijderwijk. “They are context-specific; that’s precisely why you always design together with the place in question.”
The next phase: feasibility studies for the Juan Angola Canal
One project has been selected within WaL Cartagena to proceed to feasibility studies in phase 3: the Juan Angola Canal. The WaL Project Proposal concerns flood resilience and quality of life, upstream and downstream, and is well aligned with local needs and plans. It roughly entails the following:
- Along Juan Angola, the bank would be gradually transformed into a continuous city park. The canal would be given room to breathe: it would be deepened and restored so that water can flow better. A footpath would connect places to linger and steps down to the water; in quieter sections, reed beds, riparian plants, and shallow sheltered zones will attract fish, birds, and insects. This gives rise to a place where flood protection coincides with a pleasant, green route through the neighbourhood.
- Higher up, on the slopes and in the streets, rainwater would be retained. Infiltration cells, green verges, and small storage areas give water time to percolate into the soil, while at strategic points, culverts lead the surplus to the canal in a controlled way. Replanting bare embankments binds the soil and slows erosion, so that less sand and silt reach the lower city. The result would be a chain of simple interventions that together calm the system and make the neighbourhood more liveable.
“I see a lot of methodological overlap between the WaL design and what the municipality is already doing,” says Iriarte. “From the characterisation of the micro-catchment to the idea of public space with footpaths and viewpoints: we’re on the same page. I also recognize innovative elements from the WaL team – for example, ideas related to biodiversity in the canal; we’d like to replicate those.”
What the Netherlands has learned from the WaL Cartagena programme
Barbara Swart, coordinator of bilateral cooperation on water and climate adaptation at the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (IenW) and lead within Partners for Water, sees in WaL Cartagena exactly what the Netherlands is aiming for with international cooperation: impact on the ground and learning from each other. “It’s great to provide and to collect knowledge,” says Swart. “But above all, we want to see that this knowledge is used: that Cartagena’s residents benefit directly. WaL is integral and inclusive; it is developed together with the communities. That makes it stronger.”
On an earlier visit to the city, she and her team saw the enormous opportunities here. It’s a coastal city where water and climate challenges, public space, and social development converge. That makes the area eminently suitable for projects that not only reduce flood risks, but also regreen neighbourhoods, improve health and quality of life, and strengthen local ownership. Because the city also prioritises these aspects and financiers have been engaged from day one, this paves the way for tangible results in the short term and a scalable route to larger water infrastructure.
She emphasises that this cooperation is a two-way street. “We’re still ‘Nederland Waterland’, a country reclaimed from the water,” says Swart, “but in other regions, extreme rains, heat and drought have been going on longer and are more severe. We can learn from that. A striking example is the principle that water and soil are considered in spatial decisions. The Netherlands and Colombia embedded this in policy around the same time. Then you want to know how it works in practice. Who achieves results faster, and why?”
Financing: early at the table, but with local ownership
From the start, financiers and development banks have been at the table to test whether a design will be bankable later. Swart: “Here we have an intermediary role: bringing parties to the table and hearing their ideas. But ownership lies in Cartagena. The city must determine whom to partner with and how the link to national budgets will work. We’re not the leading party. (…) The most important thing is to produce concrete, bankable packages which financiers can commit to.” Financing resilient urban projects is usually challenging, due to fiscal restrictions in governments, both local and national, emphasises Zuijderwijk.
Final phase
Meanwhile, work continues apace. “In the short term, the municipality would like to push at least one section of the canal design quickly through the approval process,” says Zuijderwijk. “A challenge, but doable. Immediately after, we would elaborate the longer-term measures: hydrological model, impact calculations, environmental frameworks, and the financing mix.” Phase 3 is being shaped with our partners at the municipality, says Swart. “We want to deliver early results and set out the vision and elaboration for the larger water infrastructure project that can be implemented later.”
Participation as a design decision-maker
Social dialogue will be crucial in the period ahead. Iriarte sees an opportunity here. “In phase 3 we can establish methods and forms of social consultation that allow us to systematically gather residents’ ideas, knowledge, and concerns. Neighbours sometimes disagree – you must keep an eye on that. It could be about something small, like where a bridge should be. But that’s where a good solution begins, by accommodating the different parties.” This ties in with one of the aspects Swart finds so inspiring in Colombia: “Embedding indigenous and local knowledge. We have participation in the Netherlands too, but in Colombia you see how self-evident it is that communities co-decide. It works, and it translates into simpler maintenance and tangible ownership.”
What is ultimately at stake?
For Cartagena: fewer floods, more shade and greenery, better access to water and public space, and less sediment washing into the lower city. For the Netherlands: practical knowledge about scaling up nature-inclusive solutions in a tropical coastal city, about financing climate adaptation projects, and about embedding management in community structures. Regarding global cooperation, there is another ambition. “In 2023 we agreed the Water Action Agenda at the UN Water Conference,” says Swart. “This means we need to take action. We talk a lot, but ultimately, it’s about visible results. Because of the effects of climate change the urgency has grown, and I would love it if we could demonstrate what WaL has delivered in concrete terms at the next conference in 2026. This requires a joint acceleration now. To get there, all partners – Cartagena’s authorities, communities, Dutch and international funders, and the WaL consortium – need to accelerate delivery now.”
Find out more about Water as LeverageThis year, Mozambique and the Netherlands mark 50 years of cooperation in water and agriculture – a long-term partnership built on solidarity and shared learning. To reflect on this milestone, Maarten Gischler (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Richard Bahumwire (SDU Beira) and Gerard Vos (FOUNT) share their perspectives on how decades of collaboration have evolved from technical assistance to a partnership for urban climate resilience, and what lies ahead in the decades to come.
It’s 1975. Mozambique has just gained independence. The country faces a collapsed economy and a shortage of skilled professionals. To fill the gap, the government invites foreign experts – known locally as cooperantes – including Dutch engineers specialised in water and irrigation. These Dutch cooperantes help to establish systems that would shape Mozambique’s water management for decades.
Over time, this technical assistance evolved into something much greater: a true partnership.
From technical assistance to partnership
“I think we started from the idea that we knew how everything should be done, because our water infrastructure is so well organised in the Netherlands,” reflects Maarten Gischler, Delta Coordinator at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and long-time advisor to the Dutch water programme in Mozambique. “Over time, we learned to really start listening to what is happening locally, to enable local leadership, and to focus on long-term processes rather than quick results.”
The long-term involvement of Dutch experts fostered deep trust between Mozambican institutions and the Dutch Embassy. What began as sector-wide technical assistance gradually developed into sustainable, integrated water management – where governance, land management and finance all form part of the same equation. Nowhere would this become more evident than in Beira. Here, a 25-year vision for urban resilience would turn lessons into practice.
Beira’s masterplan becomes reality
By the early 2010s, Beira had emerged as a focal point. The city’s port was economically vital, growing 10 to 15 percent annually under a concession to a Dutch port operator since 1997. However, the port city was increasingly threatened by floods and rising sea levels.
Gischler: “When a Dutch mission visited in 2010, the city’s late mayor made a decisive request: ‘It’s great that you’re looking at the port, but half our city is under water time and again. We need a plan for that.’” That call led to the Beira Masterplan 2035, developed with support from Partners for Water and the Dutch Embassy. After being approved in 2014, it became more than a document. “The plan became a living chessboard,” recalls Gischler. “The late mayor laid that map on his table in the city hall, and projects were chess pieces that could move, connect and synergise.”
The results span new infrastructure, improved governance, better service delivery and more financial resources. “Neighbourhoods that once flooded for weeks now see water recede within days,” says Gischler. “The city’s cadastre system was digitalised, enabling property tax collection that grew from €600,000 to €2 million annually. That’s empowering for a city government. Being able to collect your own money and having an accountability relationship with citizens.” But infrastructure alone wasn’t enough to build climate resilience. It also required addressing other long-standing national challenges.
Why financing blocks resilient housing
When Cyclone Idai struck in 2019, followed by Cyclone Eloise in 2021, the storms exposed Beira’s deeper vulnerability. “Seventy percent of houses were damaged,” Gischler recalls. “It showed us that resilience is not just about drainage and dikes, it’s also about the homes people live in.”
One of the root problems for resilient housing? “Financing,” explains Richard Bahumwire, CEO of Sociedade de Desenvolvimento Urbano da Beira (SDU Beira), the municipal land development company. “Across Mozambique’s 34 million people, only about 600 mortgages have ever been issued.” Interest rates hover around 25 percent, and banks consider low-income households too risky. Without access to credit, people build informally – often in unsafe areas. “Self-built homes dominate the landscape,” Bahumwire adds. “They are affordable, yet extremely vulnerable. If roofs keep blowing off, you can’t call a city resilient.”
SDU Beira – a public-private company established in 2018 and fully owned by the Municipality of Beira – was set up to carry out the city’s Masterplan 2035. In response to the cyclones, it shifted its focus toward developing climate-resilient housing. The company started with the preparation of flood-prone land for construction. “Beira is like Rotterdam,” Bahumwire explains. “It lies below sea level. so if you want to build, you first need land that doesn’t flood.”
But how do you build affordable homes when potential buyers can’t access loans? “Local private developer Casa Real became a pioneer in tackling this challenge,” shares Gischler. In partnership with the Municipality of Beira, which secured the land and land titles, Casa Real has built, sold or rented around 150 affordable, climate-resilient homes since 2018 in the Inhamízua neighbourhood. “When Cyclone Idai struck, the first batch of ten houses was put to the test, and all subsequent homes benefited from improved cyclone-resilient design. Casa Real also experimented with different financing models, both for construction and for end-users.”
Maraza: breaking the financing deadlock
This year marked a breakthrough. The first stone was laid in Maraza, an integrated affordable housing project aiming to build 25,000 homes in Beira following the 150 homes in Inhamízua. With support from Partners for Water and the Dutch embassy, three hectares of land were raised by two metres, and essential infrastructure was installed. Casa Real then built eight pilot homes, merging their private-sector experience with the municipality’s public-sector initiative. “It’s just the beginning,” explains Bahumwire. “The journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.”
A revolving fund model that scales
“The eight houses prove more than concept – they also demonstrate a new financing model,” explains Gerard Vos from FOUNT, a Dutch impact investment advisory firm that helped to structure the financing. He continues: “Partners for Water provided a grant and loan to SDU Beira, which loaned funds to local developer Casa Real to build the homes. Once residents move in and prove they can pay their monthly instalments, GAPI Bank and the International Labour Organization (ILO) refinance the completed houses through a separate affordable housing facility.”
Residents enter “rent-to-buy” arrangements: monthly instalments at lower interest rates than commercial banks offer, with flexible schedules suited to irregular incomes. “When GAPI and ILO refinance the homes, SDU can reinvest that money in the next batch of houses,” explains Vos. “That’s how you scale.” He adds: “The model reduces risk for developers, makes housing accessible for buyers, and creates a sustainable investment cycle – all without traditional mortgages.”
From pilot to blueprint
“Affordable housing will be a game-changer for Beira,” says Bahumwire. “The city is growing, the port is expanding, industries are coming… people will need safe, affordable homes close to work.” The dream is ambitious: 25,000 homes in Maraza, transforming flood-prone land into safe, vibrant communities. But realising this vision requires proof that the model works at scale. “A track record is vital,” explains Vos. “You need to show investors: we’ve built, we’ve sold, we’ve refinanced. Meanwhile, the project is capturing payment data which is crucial for banks. Do that a few times and larger parties will say: okay, now we’re interested.” Bahumwire adds: “The Ministry has already asked us to present our model, because it is interested in scaling it to other Mozambican cities.”
Climate resilience requires system change
In Beira it became apparent that everything is connected when building a climate-resilient city. As Bahumwire states: “It’s not just about building resilient houses and water infrastructure, it’s about changing the system.”
For the Netherlands, Beira represents a learning laboratory. “What began as technical assistance has become a partnership of equals,” reflects Gischler. “The successes in Beira show that long-term, patient collaboration works.”
Fifty years of partnership have built trust, knowledge and system change. The foundation is laid. The proof of concept is nearing delivery. Now comes the scale-up, showing that climate-resilient cities are not only about infrastructure, but also about system change. And ultimately, about giving people a place to live, thrive and stay safe.
Read more about projects in Mozambique
Partners for Water is a Dutch government programme enhancing water security internationally in long-term cooperation with local partners and the Dutch water sector. By facilitating strategic planning and support in the early stages of innovation, the programme aims to contribute to systemic change for sustainable water management and infrastructure. This is how we initiate impactful changes for a better living environment.
