A Global Network of Youth Water Businesses
The diminishing availability of water resources—linked to the pressures of population growth, loss of natural ecosystems, and climate change—threatens to jeopardize human security in many regions of the world.
The International Youth Water Movement sees the urgent need to create new business models that guarantee the sustainable management of water and increase access by people without it. It is also critical need to advance more collaborative ways of governing water resources around the world.
The movement joins the Rework the World initiative to advance this agenda and the kind of partnerships that can deliver a large-scale involvement of young people in creating different types of sustainable water enterprises. It seeks to create “Centers for Youth Enterprise Development” through its partners around the word, which engage young entrepreneurs to advance new water business ideas.
IYWM is already mobilizing thousands of young people around the world to advance a water sustainability agenda, including policy and decision-making processes, in more than 150 countries.
So far, young people in the movement have:
• Reached agreements with local governments to guarantee sanitation and water access to 100.000 homes.
• Influenced water access legislation in Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Nicaragua.
• Created ‘citizen agreements’ to reduce C02 emissions: 25.000 people.
• Pursued agreements with 190 institutions to reduce a total of 5.229 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
• Reforested 250.000 trees
The Centers will work as incubators, and engage students, the private sector, young entrepreneurs, and technical capacity providers to facilitate the development of vibrant youth water enterprises, which will range from purification of water to increased access and delivery. Business partnerships—and leveraging the skills found in water companies—are an essential component of the initiative, which seeks to work together with business and investors to advance its agenda.
Contact: Gonzalo del Castillo, IYWM email
