The Asian Development Bank, the Netherlands Water Partnership, and the Dutch Government hosted an intensive week-long programme that brought together 48 delegates from 12 project teams across 11 Asian participating countries and water experts from the Netherlands. The Asian and Dutch parties expanded their knowledge and shared experiences regarding Nature-based Solutions for cities, coasts, and river basins through lectures, interactive sessions, and field visits. The participants came from Armenia, Bangladesh, the Cook Islands, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the People’s Republic of China, the Philippines, Thailand, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. 

On the day preceding the week, FutureWater participated in the Asian Development Bank’s Business Opportunity Seminar on Water, organized by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) in The Hague. Sonu Khanal and Arthur Lutz met with ADB representatives and shared FutureWater’s experiences in working with the Asian Development Bank in the plenary panel discussion. 

During the Asia-Netherlands Water Learning Week, Evelyn Aparicio Medrano and Arthur Lutz joined the programme to learn more about the Asian project teams, and the challenges they face in implementing Nature-based Solutions in their projects. Besides sharing our experience with Nature-based Solutions with the participants, Evelyn Aparicio Medrano presented work done by FutureWater in the Masterclass on financial sustainability of projects with Nature-based Solutions. She presented a How-to Guide to develop watershed investment programs which FutureWater developed jointly with The Nature Conservancy. 

We thank the Netherlands Water Partnership, the Asian Development Bank and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency for organising these fruitful events!