How to contribute to global commitments while
achieving sectoral objectives?

Mainstreaming Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) into Peruvian water sector´s strategies and interventions offer a great opportunity to ensuring universal, sustainable and quality access to water and sanitation services, while complying with the Agenda 2030 (SDG 6) and the Paris Climate Agreement.

In this context, the General Directorate of Environmental Affairs (Dirección General de Asuntos Ambientales; DGAA) of the Peruvian Ministry of Housing, Construction and Sanitation (Ministerio de Vivienda, Construcción y Saneamiento; MVCS) has introduced the Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Plans (Planes de Mitigación y Adaptación al Cambio Climático; PMACC) as planning instruments to face climate change in the water and sanitation utilities´ area of responsibility. To find out on how much progress do utilities have made so far? – regarding the prioritized climate measures – DGAA with the support of the German Development Cooperation and the Swiss Cooperation – SECO, implemented by GIZ, through WaCCLiM and PROAGUA II, carried out an “Assessment on PMACC Implementation´s Extent by utilities under the Peruvian NDCs“.

This assessment report provides information on what adaptation and/or mitigation measures have been implemented so far, highlighting the considerations of co-benefits such as operating costs reduction, operational efficiency and water bodies´ protection. Furthermore, it addresses the main barriers including gaps on capacity development but also opportunities for climate measures´ monitoring and follow-up. These findings will inform to decision makers and practitioners when updating the water-related NDCs under the ongoing process of enhancing NDCs ambition.

What is next?

The findings of the PMACC Implementation´s report will be applied for updating sector´s strategies and interventions, in order to ensure access and quality of water and sanitation services in a context of climate change – recognizing its importance for public health, economic recovery along with environmental and climate protection. Moreover, it will be required to link climate measures with financing mechanisms to support the transition from planning to action. Thus, these findings will also feed the national and regional Water and Sanitation Plans´ updating process, currently under development by the MVCS.

The task is ongoing, and the International Cooperation is seizing the digital transformation´s processes and tools for bringing about its advisory services at the forefront.

Job description

The global project ‘Water and Wastewater Companies for Climate Mitigation’ (WaCCliM) cooperates with the partner countries Jordan, Mexico and Peru. The German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) supports this project as part of the International Climate Initiative (IKI). The objective of WaCCliM is to advise water and wastewater utilities on their way to carbon neutrality and improved climate resilience. By this, the water sectors in the partner countries become climate smarter. The key objectives of the programme are 1) to integrate GHG reduction technologies such as energy efficiency, water loss reduction as well as climate risk analysis into the operations of selected water and wastewater utilities; 2) to improve political and institutional framework conditions for climate protection in the water sector; and to 3) develop capacities for climate protection in the water and wastewater sector.

Your tasks

This internship presents a unique opportunity to gain first-hand experience on how the water sector can contribute to protect our climate and improve climate resilience. The work provides valuable insights into carbon accounting methods for the water industry as well as technology cooperation, policy advice and implementation of measures to reduce GHG emissions in three partner countries. The intern gains insight into challenges and the sensitive issue of communication with and between manifold partners from diverse backgrounds and with varying interests and capacities. Under the supervision of senior team members, the intern will be expected to support the team on a range of functions, including:

• Support project team in the development of a concept for eLearning for the Energy Performance and Carbon Emissions Assessment and Monitoring (ECAM) Tool
• Update and develop new training materials for face-to-face, partly virtual and online ECAM trainings
• Research background information and development of material on climate risk analysis for urban water and wastewater utilities
• Support to the internal and external communication (esp. social media accounts) of the global programme and the activities in the partner countries
• Assist project team in the preparation, implementation and recording of virtual workshops of the global project team
• Conduct research on different topics related to urban water management and climate change
• Support project progress reporting and knowledge management
• Ad hoc assignments and support to the project team

Your profile

• At least a bachelor’s degree in environmental sciences, development studies, information and communication sciences, or a related discipline and studying at master’s Level
• Knowledge about climate change mitigation and adaption
• Strong communication skills, highly proactive and organized, able to communicate effectively and to work in a team
• Excellent interpersonal and verbal/written communication skills, particularly in written and spoken English and German are required, Spanish skills would be an strong asset
• Assets would be but are not conditional prerequisites: experiences in media relations, experiences with eLearning formats, working knowledge of Adobe Illustrator/Adobe InDesign, PR, work experience in emerging economies and/or private sector companies

Notes

Please be informed that you are only allowed to apply for this internship, if you are currently enrolled as a student or graduated not longer than six months ago from the start of your internship.

GIZ would like to increase the proportion of employees with disability, both in Germany and abroad. Applications from persons with disabilities are most welcome.

Application

GIZ Job Portal

Everyone is talking about digitalisation, and with good reason: digital change is reaching into almost every moment of human life. While the technologies have been arriving decade by decade, the world has never seen anything like the wave of the last few years. In 2018, more than 18 billion devices were connected to the internet, and the number is projected to hit nearly 30 billion by 2023 – which will be more than three devices per person on the planet. Half of these will not be accessed by people at all, but will only talk to other devices.

This is digitalisation: it doesn’t just mean living with digital devices, but living in a digitally determined world. People direct their life stories on social media, order their clothes and meals online, exchange projects with work colleagues on a global scale, and – especially in the locked-down world of 2020 – meet their friends and family over high-definition video streams.

Digitalisation is also changing the way people consume water. Many are switching to smart meters that provide real time data and enable households to make informed decisions on their water consumption. Positive benefits also extend to water utilities; for example, smart meters can detect leakages and reduce the labour costs associated with more traditional metering systems. Smart meters are one example in a range of technological innovations that are now transforming how water utilities operate – from machine learning that helps to predict water shortages and track flood patterns to robotics that improve the effectiveness and safety of tasks prone to human error.

Digitalisation impacts heavily on the environment, however, as billions of short-lived, electrically powered devices communicate with one another and with high-performance cloud services running on perpetually humming server farms. The whirlwind pace of digital expansion has raised fears that it could all be a high-tech emissions engine. Estimates suggest that information and communication technology is responsible for 3.6% of global electricity usage and contributes 1.4% of global emissions.

In other words, digitalisation is not innocent when it comes to the other whirlwind change of the present day: global climate change. To be part of a sustainable, liveable future, digitalisation has to decisively support positive outcomes for the climate and environment. Fortunately, there are many ways in which it can, not least in the water and wastewater sector.

WaCCliM’s Digital Toolbox

WaCCliM is a digitally native project: we connect municipalities and water and wastewater utilities in online exchanges, provide digital tools like ECAM to assess greenhouse gas emissions and prioritise climate mitigation measures, and disseminate effective approaches through our digital knowledge platform, Climate Smart Water. And this is only the beginning of our work to promote digitalisation in the service of mitigation. We have identified a number of digital solutions in our pilot countries that can directly lead to more efficient operation, letting utilities save and recover energy and resources.

In Madaba, Jordan, our partner utility installed energy-efficient pumps with variable frequency drives in April 2019. More than just efficient, these pumps are an important step towards digitalisation in the urban water system. With access to so much powerful operating data, the utility knows the status of its drive system and gains insights for optimising the production and availability of drinking water. Meanwhile, planned vibration monitoring sensors will alert the utility to potential problems, contributing to higher efficiency and longevity of the pumps. They are now investigating other digital options for early detection of water leakages, which will allow for perfectly targeted maintenance across the system before any water is unnecessarily lost.

In Cusco, Peru, our partner utility has embraced digitalisation to more efficiently assess biogas production. Biogas analysers, which are currently being compared and evaluated, will  help to assess and monitor the quality of biogas they are producing from wastewater. These analysers are key components of an efficient biogas recovery system, whereby the methane and nitrous oxide generated from the breakdown of organic matter in wastewater are captured instead of escaping into the atmosphere. With an effective, digitally guided recovery system in place, the utility will power its own operations from these otherwise damaging greenhouse gases.

A Green Agenda for Digitalisation

Sensors and solutions like these are driving green digitalisation. According to a 2015 estimate, then-existing digital solutions had the potential to reduce global emissions by as much as 15% by 2030 – and the solutions are only growing in number.

In the water sector and every sector, digitalisation needs to have a small footprint and use it to create big benefits for the environment and the climate. To ensure this will happen, Germany’s Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) adopted a Digital Policy Agenda for the Environment in March 2020, with measures that tie together digitalisation and environmental protection.

The Agenda grew out of a pathbreaking process in the autumn of 2019, with more than 200 experts coming together for an environmental workshop. It comprises more than 70 measures to make digitalisation green; many are already under way, others in early development with a promising future. The goal is nothing less than socio-ecological transformation across the areas of mobility, nature conservation, agriculture, water management, “Industry 4.0”, the circular economy and sustainable consumption.

WaCCliM’s ongoing work with digital tools in the urban water sector is well aligned with a significant part of BMU’s plans: the use of digital water management for better services. The Ministry is pursuing solutions to bring the German water management sector more efficient operations, savings and recovery of energy and resources, and digital planning processes for infrastructure. We look forward to bringing these experiences, too, into our global community of practice, and making the rapidly digitalising water sector a significant field of action in climate mitigation.

BMU (2020): Digital Policy Agenda for the Environment

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, Peru’s sanitation service providers continue to fulfil their responsibilities to provide safe and reliable water and sanitation services for the population, although many of them are already facing insufficient resources, staff shortages and disruptions in the supply chain of chemicals and personal protective equipment, which may affect the service continuity.

In particular, as far as wastewater is concerned, service providers need to adopt measures for preventing COVID-19´s spread among their personnel and ensuring wastewater treatment´s continuity while protecting the environment and climate. Proper wastewater management will not only address the pandemic but also move towards ensuring urban water security and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

As the pandemic progresses, service providers will require measures to prepare for, respond to and recover from the pandemic, and to ensure wastewater treatment´s continuity in changing situations.

As an example, the Cusco city´s service provider (SEDACUSCO), with the support of the Swiss Cooperation – SECO and the German Development Cooperation implemented by GIZ, through WaCCliM and PROAGUA II, has drawn up a Pandemic COVID-19 Contingency Plan for its Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) San Jerónimo, focusing on protecting personnel´s health, maintaining essential operations, facilities, equipment and supplies, and communicating with customers and government authorities.

The Contingency Plan of the wastewater treatment plant San Jerónimo analyzes critical processes to ensure continuity of operations in the face of personnel shortages; critical inputs and materials to overcome interruptions in the supply chain, and strategies in case critical services and/or contracts cannot be executed.

This Contingency Plan is part of a tool series for sanitation service providers to ensure the services´ continuity in the face of the pandemic, benefiting thousands of Peruvians and moving towards a carbon neutral and climate resilient recovery.

“These [virtual] meetings are an opportunity for information exchange, which will contribute to the new proposal of the National Water and Sanitation Plan and the Regional Water and Sanitation Plans.”

These are the words of Mary Tesen (Sector Specialist from the Sanitation Directorate of the Peruvian Ministry of Housing, Construction and Sanitation – Ministerio de Vivienda, Construcción y Saneamiento; MVCS), concluding the first virtual meeting, which took place on 23 April of this year in the context of updating the water and sanitation plans.

The objective of the meeting was to brief the professionals of the Sanitation Directorate on the commitments, challenges and opportunities for the water sector in implementing Peru’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) on climate change and achieve the Sustainable Development Goal on water (SDG 6). These professionals are in charge of updating the Regional Water and Sanitation Plans and the National Water and Sanitation Plan and ensuring the compliance of water services planning with environmental and climate concerns.

Specifically, the virtual meeting discussed issues such as the water and wastewater utilities’ contributions to the NDCs through the development and implementation of Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Plans (Planes de Mitigación y Adaptación al Cambio Climático; PMACC); as well as the current status of the Single Registry of the Progressive Adjustment Process (Registro Único del Proceso de Adecuación Progresiva; RUPAP) on wastewater discharge, which is generated by the utilities, affecting the quality of receiving water bodies. This in turn can impact urban water supply security and increase greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions – relevant aspects to consider in the future water and sanitation plans.

The briefing session was delivered by the General Directorate for Environmental Affairs (Dirección General de Asuntos Ambientales; DGAA) of the MVCS, with the support of the Swiss Cooperation – SECO and the German Development Cooperation, implemented by GIZ, through the WaCCliM and PROAGUA II projects. 25 people assisted the online meeting; a good practice case study of applying digital technology for ensuring process continuity under the current circumstances.

This meeting was the first out of a series of virtual meetings, which will take place among MVCS directorates in order to carry out the update process of the Regional Water and Sanitation Plans and the National Water and Sanitation Plan, including NDC- and SDG 6-related objectives and targets.