We spoke with Dr Shehnaaz on why CDKN joined, and also why their community should submit change journeys:
“It’s an ideal opportunity to not only celebrate your own success but to share it with other practitioners, because of what this will do, it will build a sort of community of practice”.
She also highlight the peer-to-peer opportunity: “Most of our projects will come from Africa, but there are lots of learnings from Latin America and Asia that can be shared and used to further the water decisions within the resilience community, and not only do that but also start bringing best practice to the front”.
Dr Shehnaaz says that most water decisions are hard to take, because many stakeholders are involved: "It’s extremely complex, there are often competing priorities, there are political issues. So if you are looking at transboundary water and wanting to build resilience in a basin, it ranges from issues around who gets access to the water first, what livelihoods and how the livelihoods are being impacted. There are also issues around needing to move people out of floodplains, so technically difficult issues, and it’s politically even more difficult.”
CDKN works to enhance the quality of life for the poorest and most vulnerable to climate change, and support decision-makers in designing and delivering climate compatible development. They do this by combining knowledge, research and technical advisory in support of locally owned and managed policy processes. CDKN works in partnership with decision-makers in the public, private and non-governmental sectors nationally, regionally and globally.