Concerned that issues raised by climate change may be creating new avenues and possibilities for corruption in the water sector, the Water Integrity Network (WIN) convened a panel of experts for consultation. Potential challenges include a misuse of the term ‘climate change’ and a lack of transparency in the discourse surrounding this topic. In addition the channelling of large sums of money into poor countries could increase the risk of corruption in the water sector without bringing real protection to threatened communities. WIN posed the question: does the issue of climate change require the water sector to change its approach to prevent and deal with corruption? The consultation was supported by Ecologic Institute, with Grit Martinez advising on the framing and scoping of the exercise, and R. Andreas Kraemer chairing the consultation plenary. The WIN report is available for download.

The consultation was supported by Ecologic Institute, with Grit Martinez advising on the framing and scoping of the exercise, and R. Andreas Kraemer chairing the consultation plenary.

Against this background the Water Integrity Network joined forces with 20 water and climate change experts and hosted an expert’s consultation on water corruption and integrity, environment and climate change at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin, on 29 March 2010.

The purpose of the expert’s consultation was to

1. review the current state of knowledge about the nexus of water corruption, integrity and environment with climate change
2. identify differences between addressing water and corruption; water and corruption in relation to environmental degradation and water and corruption. Environmental degradation and climate change
3. review the main factors affecting the level of corruption in the water sector in the context of climate change
4. identify problems and their cause and effect relations focusing corruption in relation to water, climate change and environmental degradation
5. recommend strategies and actions to deal with these problems

The expert’s consultation contained of two blocks:

1. Morning session of presentations with a moderated plenum debate
2. Afternoon session with two parallel break out groups, plenum discussion and final remarks

A detailed report  [pdf,914 KB, English] is available for download from the Ecologic Website.