News
Long term collaboration to invest in Young Experts
Young Experts Programmes (YEP Programmes) and WaterWorX Programme signed a partnership agreement to extend the existing cooperation during YEP Phase II, which lasts until April 2025. This collaboration between the programmes also aims to increase the exchange between the YEP programmes (Water, Agrofood and Energy) and Young Experts in the YEP Tailored-made Training Programme, as well as to increase the number of Tailor-made Young Experts.
WaterWorX is a utility partnership programme funded and implemented by a consortium of the 10 Dutch Water Utilities and the Dutch Ministry for Development Cooperation. Under this programme, Dutch water supply companies set up Water Operational Partnerships (WOPs) with water utilities in Africa, Asia and Latin America with the objective to increase access to sustainable water services for 10 million people between 2017-2030.
Programme Coordinator at WaterWorX, Anke Verheij, and Programme Manager at YEP Programmes, Vincent Cornelissen, officially extended the collaboration between the two programmes on 4 April. With this new agreement, WaterWorX recognises that Young Experts are potential agents of change in shaping utilities of the future. YEP communities are breeding sites for out of the box thinking and so provide valuable input in WOPs.
The agreed collaboration will focus on:
- developing WaterWorX Tailor-made YEP batches further. Each batch consists of 15 to 30 Young Experts;
- evaluating each YEP training to finetune their programme and identify opportunities for Tailor-made Young Experts to develop their YEP network; and,
- developing a YEP training trajectory that partly takes place in the Netherlands, partly in a WaterWorX project country and partly online.
Previous collaboration
During WaterWorX Phase 1, 43 national Young Experts joined a tailor-made Young Expert Programme organised by NWP. They participated in training sessions, joined online courses and received coaching for two years. In addition, most of these Young Experts were employed by, and continue their career in, the WOP partner utilities.