“It takes a village,” says an African proverb. And it did. Coming from 2019 as the new chair of the little partisan group of MEP’s concerned about water – the so called “MEP Water Group” and listening to the speech of the re-elected president of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, where she last week promised a new European Water Resilience Strategy, demonstrates the eternal – and sometimes irritating – truth of the proverb. It did take a village, and although I’m no longer a member of the European Parliament, I’m still happy and willing to serve part of the village.
In the future, I will continue to serve, among other roles, as a “midwife” to one of the consortia being developed towards the KIC Water, Marine & Maritime. This initiative, started by Aarhus University, Grundfos Foundation, and Water Valley Denmark, involves a group of public and private actors who truly want to build a European consortium with the right sense of urgency, co-creation, community-oriented, and bottom-up innovation. Whether this consortium wins the KIC WMM in 2025 or not, it will contribute to nurturing the spirit of European Water Innovation, aiming to turn the tsunami of troubles away from our beloved continent before the water crisis turns into water wars between sectors, countries, humans, and technologies.
The water challenge is so huge and so complex that we need all relevant participants to create a KIC WMM Village with numerous local hubs, where the “because I say so” attitude is replaced by “whoever and whatever makes the biggest impact.” As the former chair of MEP Water, I learned from the best in the village of The European Parliament.
I felt this so clearly and with utmost gratitude when I received the Water-Smart MEP Award during the Water Innovation Europe 2024 conference. Thank you all for this honour and for – again and again – showing me that the water society, comprising many different stakeholders from multiple sectors, professions, countries, ages, and industries, is a society of innovative, kind, progressive and neighbour-loving kind. Exactly what “village-spirit” Europe needs right now!
