Building water leadership potential with the International WaterCentre
Applications are currently being accepted for the International WaterCentre (IWC) Water Leadership Program.
The program helps emerging leaders develop the abilities they need to exert influence, drive change and advance challenging integrated water management projects. Lack of leadership is commonly identified as a barrier to achieving water sensitive city outcomes.
Phoebe Mack, Senior Environmental Engineer at GHD, a CRC for Water Sensitive Cities participant, was enthusiastic about the benefits of the program after taking part in it earlier this year.
“The IWC Leadership program is unique because it’s designed for professionals in the water sector. The program provided me with great tools and ideas to help tackle complex problems,” she said.
“This focus on complex challenges is particularly useful for GHDs’ work in integrated water cycle management. We need leadership to keep on challenging the traditional – drains, pipes and dams – and help get to the end goal of water sensitive cities.”
Another water leadership program graduate and CRCWSC local government participant Alicia Loveless said the program gave her the “knowledge, techniques and a network of peers and experts to drive positive change”.
“Whether that be in a team, an organisation or an entire sector. I continue to implement the valuable leadership practises that I learned in this program, including career planning, time management, influence and resilience, and benefit greatly from the network of marvellous professionals that I met,” she said.
The program won the 2013 Stormwater Industry Association of Queensland Award for Excellence in Policy and Education.
There are two remaining half-scholarships worth $5750 available for the next round of the IWC Water Leadership Program. Applicants must be employed by a Victorian local government that operates within the Melbourne Water region. Further information on these scholarships and the Leadership Program is available here: https://www.watercentre.org/education/leadership/the-iwc-water-leadership-program
The International WaterCentre (IWC) also celebrated its 10th anniversary with a gala function in Brisbane last Thursday night. “IWC is a truly unique organisation, because of the way it brings together the expertise of Australia’s best universities with the best of what government, industry and the NGO sector have to offer. Unique because of the way it is both formed of collaboration and utilises collaboration with a wide range of partners and associates worldwide to foster leadership, learning, dialogue and action to meet the complex water challenges of the 21st century”, said Dr Brian McIntosh, Master of Ceremonies and IWC’s Senior Lecturer and Education Program Manager
With more than 170 collaborators it has undertaken over 500 projects in the last decade, spanning an enormous diversity of integrated water management topics, including in river basin and catchment management, sustainable urban communities, and water, sanitation and hygiene. IWC’s growing Alumni Network consists of over 800 professionals from 76 countries. Including over 200 students who have completed the Master of Integrated Water Management that includes the CRCWSC-led Urban Water Futures module which won the 2015 Award for Excellence in Research and Innovation by Stormwater Queensland. The IWC’s Masters students have also delivered 200 projects in 45 countries in collaboration with over 140 organisations including with many CRCWSC participants.
“Our reach into an extensive alumni network throughout Asia and into South America and even further afield into Europe really places the IWC in a position of Australian leadership” said Professor Anton Middelberg, IWC Director and Pro Vice Chancellor (Research and International), The University of Queensland. Further reflections from the IWC Board can be found here. For additional information on the IWC education and leadership programs go to www.watercentre.org.