Fanack Water attended the Global Water Summit in Paris 12-14 May 2025. While there, Matt Luna with Fanack spoke with Henk Ovink, the Executive Director of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, and former Water Envoy for the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Mr. Ovink shared his views on investment, innovation, and needed cooperation on water in the Middle East and globally.
Here at the Global Water Summit, what do you see as key investment areas around the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region?
When you look at the MENA region and links to energy, food and sustainability at large, and water, I think the funding capacity is very diverse, so you have to unpack what funding you want to finance – for projects that can go to market to find investors. From a European perspective, infrastructure is predominately public. There is always the question of “where is the money?” Here the question is “Can you create a marketplace in the links between water and food, and beyond, with business cases that attract capital?”
Secondly, diversification between in what public and private financing is needs to be understood. In a normal situation, public funding de-risks private capital: private is faster and public is slower. But this may not be the case in the Middle East. I think you have to really understand the finance market well before you can add to that.
And last is that projects may attract money only if there is a revenue stream. And we know that these revenue streams are hard to capture in the short term. Long-term approaches by linking water-food-energy are going to be beneficial if you want to crowd in these different funding streams. This demands a mix of patience and fast capital, and different partners that come in. Creating the right type of envelope for where those investments will flourish is going to be key.
Also, drought is a longer-term GDP ruiner, which is different from climate-related events which are often short shocks. So mitigating risks in the context of drought is going to be key not only for saving harvests or insuring energy and industry, but it’s really about saving your economy and society. This is for the MENA region an opportunity in knowing that combatting droughts can be a different practice.
So how can the MENA region better leverage climate adaptation to address water scarcity?
The MENA is a different region from others, so adaptation is about systems preparedness: in your society, industry, your governance, finance, and infrastructure. Being ready for shocks and stresses that are coming in such a way that readiness is also part of your climate mitigation agenda as well as your adaptation. So ticking the two boxes means really focusing on where the hydrological cycle is out of balance and where it is impacting the environment – and therefore undermining the economic opportunities as well as food and energy security.
I think here again MENA can be like a petri dish for these challenges in providing the incentives for creating opportunities in scarce environments – and not only with big infrastructure like desalination – which is in a way adaptation but is not addressing systemic challenges. Desalination produces a lot of water at a large cost with environmental impact – but innovative desalination technologies are reducing the impacts. Desal does not however address water scarcity in the context of a growing economy and growing demand, as well as the need to balance water, energy and agriculture. I think this is where the opportunity is if we look at it holistically.
This region will always need desalination, so it can be a driver for innovations and in bringing those technologies to Small Island Development States which ship in fresh water in plastic bottles. If you apply this technology in these vulnerable places, it can be amazing with desalination as part of a suite of innovations.
We need reduce, re-use, recycle, nature-based solutions, greening environment, focus on ground water (if it’s there), fresh water capture in the best way possible – and looking at whole supply chains in industry, agriculture and energy how you can better use the water we have.
Is there an underrated solution to water scarcity that is not getting enough attention?
A lot of solutions get attention, but I think the right questions are if they get scaled, applied and replicated. For example, mainstreaming nature-based solutions and re-use is not happening in the right way, in a systemic way. This is where we need to put our money where our mouth is.
With the report of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water we were able to provide how the mix between land use and water use is key to stabilizing a hydrological cycle. Land use is way more important than ever thought, as this is where transpiration comes from, and that means that larger land uses like agriculture are not only consuming water, but also consuming land, and therefore taking away a source of rainwater. The link between desertification, biodiversity, climate and water is key. This is where MENA can really be the good spot for generating all these innovations. The Mohamed bin Zayed Water Initiative in the UAE is an example of focusing on innovations that can be catalysts to also attract capital.
The Middle East faces some of the world’s most acute water stress, compounded by geopolitical tensions. What is a lesson that could inspire global water cooperation?
Geopolitics are less the driver for regional challenges when it comes to collaborating around water. This is not unique for MENA, collaborating not only on transboundary water but also transboundary flows – what water we literally have in our skies, our rivers, our lands, our aquifers, and our seas, is going to be the mean driver for sustainable use of water in the near future. There are opportunities around this for the MENA region that will not be easy to capture. Like other regions around the world, political challenges and tensions are eating into challenges of environmental stress – and the other way around.
Dams and rivers are not the cause of war, but more the combination of poor infrastructure with poor politics. Water scarcity in Syria was not the reason for civil war. Jordan had the same water stress over eight years, and did not erupt into violence. Ensuring safe spaces to have conversations to be able to speak truth to power and connecting across tensions and borders are steps in a larger process. Consistency, continuity and commitment to organize these safe spaces for understanding – with science, data, and a diversity of voices – is going to be key.
How can the Middle East shift from “scarcity narratives” to leadership in circular water economies?
The stress is embraced because there is a far more holistic understanding of the challenges of how water is linked to the economy, the environment, energy, food, and sustainability. You have to be able to build a level of individual capacities: from students and families and businesses all the way to the experts, to institutions, governments, to the financial and industrial sectors. Capacity in informal partnerships is also needed.
Linking longer-term approaches to innovation demands this capacity development. It also means you need the data in place to assess, valuate, and validate what you are doing. There is a level of transparency that needs to happen, while involving as many stakeholders as possible so that everybody has a seat at the table. Too often these two aspects are not matched.
Regarding COPs and climate finance, how can oil-rich nations redirect investments into sustainable water infrastructure for the region?
Do it. Investing in water trickles down across everything in society. It creates value for better health, environment, energy security, food security, jobs and opportunity, economic security. The business case for investing in water is clear – especially in arid regions – while determining what investment portfolios look like for a comprehensive setup.
Interventions with a longer-term trajectory really start to connect the dots in that. Put your money where your ambition lies. I think if you have that capital, it is a no-brainer because it’s about 1) reducing risks 2) return on investment 3) creating value beyond your project scale 4) creating opportunities. This is a normal way of looking at it economically.
Are we going to be asking these same questions with same issues in 10 years?
No. If I look 10 years back, we were not even able to have this conversation. Water was low on the priority list, because people did not feel the risks. Now we see a totally different environment in which the private sector is asking governments to act, and give them the parameters in which they can operate. Finance is stepping up, as we see floods and droughts impacting our societies and economies around the world.
If we don’t act, what are our hurdles today will become walls, and instead of reaching out more to those whom we need to reach, we will find ourselves more in silos. The MENA is where the opportunities can become realities at scale, and an inspiration for the world.
Ten years from now, we will see: Were we able to capture some of these opportunities? I think they are massive – to show that water is a critical avenue to deal with resilience from a holistic water perspective, and to deliver on water security but also SDGs and the Paris agreement. If not, 10 years from now we won’t have the same conversation because we will be either dead, at war, drowning or drying up.
Figuring out solution spaces that are collaborative where science matters and voices previously not heard is important to create a pipeline of opportunities. It’s not only that I’m born optimistic, but I see in water-energy-food-health-climate-biodiversity-land use that everything we do really matters for dealing with climate, sustainability and equity. We are perhaps in the golden decade for water but we need to acknowledge this and get organized.
Michella Sfeir, Zaki Shubber, and Ruben Vermeer contributed to this interview.