Contribution Earth Security Initiative (ESI)

The depletion and over-abstraction of water is being accelerated by global economic investments by global banks and other private financial and industry actors that do not take sustainable water management into account. This is affecting all water users, including the population around a basin who have limited access to safe water and sanitation or face the risks of losing their access to safe water in the future. All major international water initiatives are calling for a greater involvement of the financial sector in particular on transboundary water, but the finance sector itself is largely disengaged from this challenge.

The water sector desperately needs actors that can bring fresh perspectives to engage global finance and industries with a convincing analysis and practical proposals to integrate sustainable water management into their day-to-day decisions. The ESI is a unique catalyst that is able to translate the policy imperatives and frameworks that are recurrently discussed in global cooperation processes into practical private sector and financial proposals so that companies and banks can move towards an implementation of the Agenda 2030. The ESI promotes good practices and policy changes that contribute directly to key areas of development cooperation in sustainable water management and poverty alleviation.

For example, the ESI has achieved the inclusion of the Blue Peace agenda in the agenda of the London Stock Exchange with leading global financial players in April 2018. It has influenced a global bank to increase its collaboration with civil society on water cooperation issues in Central Asia by aligning the analysis of energy infrastructure investments to the bank’s global portfolio; it has developed and brokered a model for UNESCO International Hydrological Programme to cooperation with global companies on data sharing of transboundary aquifers, and is mobilizing a group of global agri-businesses to incorporate and implement the Committee on Food Security-Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems, including the translation of SDG water targets into corporate monitoring metrics.