Water accounting for the Sustainable Development Goals: From promise to practice- How accounting for multiple water values can be used for sustainable development

Speakers and panelists bios

Speakers

The Hon. Tanya Plibersek is the Minister for the Environment and Water, and the Federal Member for Sydney. She served as a cabinet minister in the Gillard and Rudd Governments holding various positions, Minister for Health, Minister for Medical Research, Minister for Housing, Minister for Human Services, Minister for Social Inclusion, and Minister for the Status of Women. Before entering Parliament, Tanya worked in the Domestic Violence Unit at the New South Wales Ministry for the Status and Advancement of Women. She was elected to Federal Parliament in 1998.

The Hon. Carl-Hermann Schlettwein, Minister for Agriculture, Water and Land Reform, Government of Namibia. He was formally the Minister for Finance, and Minister for Trade and Industry. He was elected to parliament in 2010 and before this worked in a range of government agencies including the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Ministry of Youth and Sport. He is the immediate past President of the African Ministers' Council on Water (AMCOW) and Chair of the Africa Water Facility.

Panelists

Bram Edens is a Senior Statistician at the United Nations Statistics Division. He was the leader of Natural Capital Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services. He led the Natural Capital Accounting Ecosystem Services (NCAVES) program and formerly the head of industry, energy and construction statistics at the Dutch Bureau of Statistics. He has played a key role in the development of the SEEA and its application across the world.

Juha Siikamäki is Chief Economist of IUCN. He is an expert natural capital and nature-based solutions, including valuation and accounting. He previously worked at Resources for the Future was closely involved in the development of the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting Ecosystem Accounts, including chairing the working group on valuation and was a member of the Editorial Board. He is a key contributor to the World Bank’s Changing Wealth of Nations and has worked around the world

Ana Manero is part Water Justice Hub and a research fellow at the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy, working on water economics and governance. Her research is focused on improving the understanding and valuation of water resources, for resilient decision-making and greater water justice. She worked on water distribution within smallholder irrigation schemes in Tanzania. Ana has studied and worked in Spain, France, Italy, the USA and Australia, in the private and public sectors.

Poolad Karimi is Senior Irrigation Specialist at World Bank and an Associate Professor of Water and Agriculture at Delft Institute of Hydrology. He played a leading role in the development of Water Accounting Plus (WA+). He has worked on a range of issues related to water resources and agricultural water management in Asia and Africa. His current research interests include water accounting, remote sensing application in irrigation, and water productivity assessment.

Arjan Ruijs is Senior Responsible Investment Officer at ACTIAM/Cardano. He previously worked at CBS, the Dutch Environmental Protection Agency. He played a key part in the development of Policy Forum on Natural Capital Accounting for Better Decision Making. He is the author of many publications including on a report on how natural capital accounting can address the Sustainable Development Goals.

Ken Bagstad is a Research Economist at the U.S. Geological Survey, a science agency of U.S. Department of the Interior. He is the agency lead for natural capital accounting. He co-led a group that produced pilot SEEA land, water, and ecosystem accounts for the United States and collaborates with the UNSD and Basque Centre for Climate Change on ARIES for SEEA, an artificial intelligence tool to make accounts easier to compile them and the data source and methods more transparent.

Chair

Gemma Van Halderen is the General Manager of the Population, Labour, Industry, and Location Insights Division at the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Currently she serves as Interim Chair of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Environmental-Economic Accounting (UNCEEA).  Over the last 20 years, she has held several senior executive positions in the Australian public sector.  Gemma has extensive experience with the global statistical system.  She was Director of the Statistics Division in the United Nations Economic and Social commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) for three years.   Gemma is an elected member of the International Statistics Institute, an Executive Committee member of the International Association of Official Statisticians and a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Rapporteur

Michael Vardon is Associate Professor of Environmental Accounting at the Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment and Society. He was formerly the Director of the Centre of Environmental Statistics Australian Bureau of Statistics. He played a leading role in the development of SEEA Water and was a member of the Editorial Board of the SEEA Accounting Central Framework. He was also a member the Policy and Technical Expert Committee of the Wealth Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services Partnership. Michael has worked around the world on the development and implementation of environment accounting and recently lead a global review of more than 200 water accounts.

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