Summary and conclusions from the SIWI Young Professionals Workshop: The possibilities and threats of globalisation!

The Young Water Professionals Symposium discussed the nature of globalisation as it affects water and water professionals. Globalisation processes can either encourage or cure the problems of scarcity and marginalisation. Different levels of development and rates of progress reinforce the need for diverse thinking to tackle these local variations within the global context. A significant aspect is a change in roles and responsibilities for the water professional – to be less confined to the purely technical and more cooperative across traditional boundaries. To enable water professionals to fulfil these new roles education must be transformed and intellectual barriers overcome. In this way globalisation processes can be made to work for water security for the new century.