As head of the Secretariat, she was responsible for operations, fundraising, communications, outreach, and engagement with high-level individuals across the globe and oversaw the successful Bamako 2008 conference in November.
The GWP Steering Committee looked for and found in Ania Grobicki, a unique and energizing person to lead the GWP network into the next strategy period. We wanted someone strategic who will excite the Partnership, bringing with them a key range of skills including: leadership; seasoned professionalism; familiarity with sustainable development issues; an ability to work well with a broad range of people and reach outside the water sector; a networker and partnership builder; an excellent communicator; an ability to raise funds; and experience with the developing world.
Ania Grobicki has spent the majority of her working life establishing and growing a range of organizations and groups, and working on water-related issues at the sub-national, national and international levels. For 10 years Ania Grobicki managed her own very successful consulting firm (UK and South Africa) where she worked on, among other things, water supply, reuse, water quality, pollution, sanitation, and integrated catchment management issues. She has worked both sectorally and inter-sectorally on the water needs of industry, energy, agriculture, health and the environment.
Ania Grobicki has also worked extensively with various NGOs and UN agencies and is a prolific writer of books and papers, including two chapters for the 2nd World Water Development Report. Ania Grobicki has been a Coordinator for the African National Congress’s Science and Technology Group, a Coordinator for the CGIAR’s Challenge Program for Water and Food and has also been a university lecturer in South Africa and the UK.
Ania Grobicki has a BA in Economics, a BSc in Chemical Engineering and a PhD in Biotechnology from Imperial College, London. She has triple nationality (South Africa,
Poland and the UK), is married and has two teenage children. She currently resides in Geneva, Switzerland, and plans to take up her GWP duties in Stockholm, Sweden, on March 11, 2009.
On behalf of the Steering Committee and the Partnership I would like to welcome Ania to the Global Water Partnership family. We look forward to working with Ania as she leads the implementation of the GWP Strategy 2009-2013.
Letitia A Obeng, Chair Global Water Partnership