Providing access to quality water and sanitation for all, while ensuring the sustainable management of water resources, is a considerable challenge for public and private service operators, especially in developing countries. The AgroParisTech SUEZ-Eau pour Tous Chair, created in 2008, is a unique training and research centre that has already trained nearly 300 managers and executives of water and sanitation services in developing countries. It is a manifestation of SUEZ and AgroParisTech’s commitment to contribute to strengthening the skills of the managers and executives who run these services and thus participate in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals set by the UN.
As the pace of urbanisation and climate change continues to accelerate, AgroParisTech, SUEZ, the Fondation SUEZ and AFD are maintaining their partnership to build a world-class centre to provide training in strategic management of water and sanitation utilities, aimed at senior executives and general management teams, senior managers who are about to take up these positions and operational or functional managers in management roles. A new academic partnership with ESSEC – a leading management training institution in Europe – with the goal of supporting and influencing ecological and social transition in our societies through training and research, will contribute to enriching the results- and service-oriented education initiative on strategic and project management.
A Chair within the AgroParisTech Water Centre
Firmly rooted in Montpellier’s university research ecosystem, this centre is supported by a regional university dynamic. AgroParisTech is a member of the Montpellier Institute for Water and the Environment, the International Centre for Interdisciplinary Research into the dynamics of water systems under the auspices of UNESCO, and a supporter of the KIM WATERS initiative at the Montpellier University of Excellence (MUSE) i-Site. Montpellier is also home to the France Water Team competitiveness cluster, and is strengthening its links with professionals in the water sector. The Chair is at the heart of this centre of excellence.
The Chair’s training courses may be introduced on a remote learning basis starting in 2021, consolidating its actions abroad in order to strengthen its international influence. The Chair offers:
- training on the various different functions of a water and sanitation utility, its overall challenges (infrastructure operation, customer management, human resources management, asset management, cost control, finance, etc.), to enable managers to make diagnoses, set medium- and long-term targets, construct related action plans and manage them;
- training on general management issues: strategic management and planning, scoping and coordination of action plans by function, institutional relations, relations with stakeholders;
- training on project management: scoping, operational diagnosis, design of an action plan, management, approval, methodologies and tools, problem solving;
- international training courses for water stakeholders in situ (particularly in Africa and Asia).
The “Water for All” International Executive Master OpT course offered by the Chair and supported by AgroParisTech is accredited by the Conférence des Grandes Écoles and registered in the Répertoire National des Certifications Professionnelles directory.
The Agence de l’Eau Rhône Méditerranée Corse, a public institution of the French Ministry of the Environment dedicated to the preservation of water in France, partners with the Chair by financing educational grants as part of its international intervention policy for access to water and sanitation.
The Chair promotes training in the Global South, for the improved transfer of know-how to international management schools or African or Asian centres of excellence, in higher education and research, in order to establish a strategy of decentralised training and building the capacity of partner training organisations in the Global South.
A forum for operational staff and researchers
The Chair supports research programmes aimed at promoting access to drinking water and sanitation through the improvement of service management, in particular through the analysis of economic, political, institutional and managerial conditions, and through the analysis of the governance framework. Research initiatives are drawn up in response to proposals from the Scientific Council, whose members are well-known figures in the research field. The Chair aims to promote the advancement and sharing of knowledge by acting as a forum for water and sanitation managers and researchers. Every two years, it organises scientific meetings for an international audience.