Building Capacity in Frontline Communities Through Partnerships

More Details

WaterNow Alliance will host a 1-hour virtual workshop for utility and community leaders in frontline communities nationwide on how they can use partnerships to meet their most pressing water challenges. Trusting relationships between water utilities and the communities they serve can add much-needed capacity in neighborhoods and cities bearing the first and worst impacts of climate change and water infrastructure divestment—flooding to drought to basement backups to water contamination. The workshop will explore a constellation of 8 building blocks of trust, feature a real-world example of the benefits of partnerships, and demystify the range of partnerships available to water utilities.

The workshop has 4 objectives—

1. Highlight the Building Blocks of Trust that can create successful and long lasting, partnerships between water systems and community groups.
2. Explore the differences between partnership and privatization and discuss the variety of arrangements between governments and private sector organizations.
3. Feature real world case studies from utilities deploying sustainable water solutions in partnership with their community.
4. Answer questions about trust-based partnerships and the potential these relationships have to build the water systems of the future now.

Our speakers are:

• April Ingle, Policy Director, River Network
• Shahrzad Habibi, Research and Policy Director, In the Public Interest
• Meghan Rogalus, SAN Manager, Partnership for the Delaware Estuary
• Alison Aminto, Source Water Protection Program Manager, Philadelphia Water Department
• Caroline Koch, Water Policy Director, WaterNow Alliance