Waterproof

This fourth episode of Waterproof is all about breaking the Build-Neglect-Repair Cycle. As we have called it: Build. Neglect. Repair. Repeat.

With the best intentions, countries from the global north often spend a bundle of money building something that people in developing countries need, or that the donor thinks they need. Then the locals can’t maintain it, or can’t afford to, or they don’t know how. It falls apart, and the donor either has to come back to repair it – or doesn’t come back at all. It’s a vicious circle. 

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Once upon a time, Europeans would turn up in emerging countries with mega-infrastructure projects meant to help people. They were well-meaning, but often deaf to what the local populations wanted or needed. Times have changed and, as you’ll hear in this third episode of Waterproof, more and more, the locals run the show! 

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This second episode of Waterproof is all about ‘The Salty Intruder’. All over the world, arable land is becoming more and more saline, threatening farmers’ livelihoods and our food security. But there are smart, innovative people looking for solutions – and the Dutch are helping, for example with a new Virtual Reality game to teach farmers to plant salt tolerant crops. I played it – but I wasn’t very good at it, I have to admit.

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My new podcast Waterproof is live! The first episode is called ‘Let Nature Do It!’, about nature-based solutions that help prevent flooding and provide places where nature can flourish.

For this episode I joined a Dutch delegation form Blue Deal, the international program of the Dutch Union of Water Boards, to Ghana. The possibilities as well as the dilemma’s quickly became clear: restoring and maintaining the mangrove forests is one of the bst ways to combat the consequences of climate change and to create new sources of income for the local inhabitants, but selling mangrove wood is also an important source of income. After all, for the Ghanaians nothing makes smoked fish taste better than the tang of mangrove wood!

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