Steering Committee

The GWP Steering Committee is equivalent to a Board of Directors, overseeing all GWPO and network operations and reviewing annual reports for final approval by the Sponsoring Partners.

The Committee meets formally twice per year, with additional meetings called as needed. The Committee also appoints the GWPO Executive Secretary and CEO, who leads GWP’s strategic development and oversees operations. The Executive Secretary & CEO is a non-voting member of the Steering Committee and reports to the Steering Committee Chair.

Find out who are on the GWP Nomination Committee.

Steering Committee Members

Pablo Bereciartua

Chair, Argentina

Mr. Bereciartua is Chair of the Global Water Partnership.
He is the Minister of Infrastructure of the City of Buenos Aires.

Mr. Bereciartua is the former Secretary of Infrastructure and Water of Argentina (2017 – 2019) responsible for one of the main federal investment areas (water supply and sanitation, adaptation to climate change, expansion of the agricultural frontier and large scale infrastructure including dams and aqueducts) and the definition and implementation of the National Water Policies. He was also Undersecretary of Water Resources of Argentina (2015 – 2017); President of the Water Planning Agency of the Buenos Aires metropolitan area (2015 – 2019), in charge of defining the water supply and sanitation service for 14 million people; and Director of Infrastructure of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires (2007 – 2009). He is the current President of the Argentine Engineering Center.

Mr. Bereciartua is also a Professor at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and former Dean at the Buenos Aires Institute of Technology (ITBA). He is a member of the Advisory Board of the EIT Climate KIC and a member of the Steering Committee at the International Symposium on Next Generation Infrastructures (ISNGI). He has graduated with honors from Universidad Nacional de la Plata, Argentina and holds graduate degrees from University of California at Berkeley in California, USA, the UNESCO-IHE Institute in Delft, The Netherlands and the Universidad de San Andres (MBA) in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Nchedi Sophia Maphokga-Moripe

Vice Chair, South Africa

Ms. Nchedi Sophia Maphokga-Moripe is the Chief Director, Executive, Strategic Partnerships, of the Department of Water and Sanitation of South Africa. She has 39 years of experience in different responsibilities and at various levels.

She is a member of the International Advisory Committee of the UN Water Action Decade 2018-2028; board member GWP Southern Africa; negotiator for the G20 Water Platform; South Africa’s Sherpa for the High Level Panel on Water; SCM Water and Politics; Stockholm WWW; UN Women Major on CSW. She is experienced in intersectoral engagements for water, energy, and mining.

Her awards include Leader Public Service, Women’s Sector Groups, Best Special Programmes Coordinator, Best Public Service Employee of the Year.

Yamileth Astorga Espeleta

Costa Rica

M.Sc. Yamileth Astorga Espelta is the Executive President of the Costa Rican Institute of Aqueducts and Sewers (AyA) in two Government administrations (2014-2020). The AyA is the public institution with technical governance of all entities that operate water supply and wastewater sanitation (WSS) services in Costa Rica and at the same time the AyA is the operator of the WSS with a coverage that covers 50% of the population.

Ms. Astorga is a professor at the University of Costa Rica. She has worked as an academic and researcher at public universities: University of Costa Rica (UCR) 17 years, National University (UNA) 8 years, State Distance University (UNED) 15 years and Tropical Agronomic Center for Research and Teaching (CATIE) 9 years.

Astorga is a national and international consultant for organisations such as: Central American Commission for Environment and Development (CCAD), Global Water Partnership of Central America (GWP), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), World Bank, European Union, GIZ, ECLAC-Mexico and Fair-Trade Labeling Organization.

Ndey Sireng J Bakurin

The Gambia

Ms. Bakurin is a career Environmental Management and Sustainable Development Expert. Currently the Executive Director of The Association of NGOs (TANGO) in The Gambia and a former Executive Director of the Gambia National Environment Agency.

Mrs. Bakurin is the Chairperson of the GWP Country Water Partnership (CWP) in Gambia and a previous member of the Steering Committee of the GWP West Africa. Her educational background includes MSc and BSc degrees in Environmental Studies and Environmental Education coupled with a post graduate higher diploma in international and development studies.

She has more than 26 years of accumulated professional work experience in environmental and natural resources management including policy and management, gender, education, sustainable development, impact assessment, creative stakeholder engagement, monitoring &evaluation, capacity, and network building.

Professor Paulette Bynoe

Guyana

Prof. Bynoe is a Senior Lecturer and current Deputy Dean of the School of Graduate Studies at the University of Guyana. She has a Ph.D. in Geography, a M.Phil. in Environmental Education, a B.A. in Geography, and formal training certificates in Climate Change, Environmental Management, and Community Disaster Risk Management.

Her research interests are environmental education, natural resources and environmental policy, sustainable livelihoods, climate change, and disaster vulnerability.

Angel Cárdenas Sosa

Venezuela

Angel Cárdenas Sosa is the General Manager for CAF’s Water Security Agenda and also the Urban/Subnational development and creative economies agendas of the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF). He is responsible for a USD 7 billion investment portfolio (sovereign and non-sovereign) as well as USD 25+ million portfolio of non-reimbursable technical cooperation projects.

Mr. Cárdenas is an economist with Master’s degrees in Public Management, Territorial Planning and Environmental Management, as well as Business Administration. He is currently a Ph. D. candidate in Political Science. Mr. Cárdenas has more than 20 years’ experience in multilateral banking and international development. At CAF, he has served previously as Acting General Secretary, Acting General Auditor, Director of Infrastructure and Energy projects, among others. He has also lectured at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels at universities in Argentina, Spain, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Roula Majdalani

Lebanon

Ms. Majdalani has joined the International Center on Agriculture Research in Drylands (ICARDA) in January 2022 as a Senior Climate Advisor, supporting ICARDA to align its programs on food systems transformation with the Climate Agenda and sustainable development.

Prior to that, she has served as the Director of the Arab Center for Climate Change Policies and Cluster Leader of Natural Resource Sustainability at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN-ESCWA). She has extensive experience in integrated management of natural resources (water, energy and food security), working with public and private sector institutions, and supporting inter-governmental collaboration to achieve region-specific development goals.

Atem S. Ramsundersingh

Singapore

Atem S. Ramsundersingh is Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Board Member of WEnergy Global Pte Ltd, Singapore, a company established in 2012 to develop and operate decentralised renewable energy infrastructure in Southeast Asia. His current work focuses on off-grid power systems, hybrid microgrids, smart distribution grids and de-dieselisation projects, with operational activities in the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore and countries in Southeast Asia.

Through WEnergy Global and CleanGrid Partners, he has worked on commercially structured energy projects that provide reliable electricity to townships, industrial estates and businesses not adequately served by conventional power systems.

He has over three decades of international experience in infrastructure planning, water management, institutional reform, public-private partnerships and executive management. He has worked in over 80 countries, forging public-private partnerships that combine policy innovation, institutional strengthening, and sustainable investment.

At the World Bank Institute in Washington, DC, he served as Senior Water & Institutions Specialist and Acting Program Manager, leading work on water, energy and institutional development programs in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. His work included the turnaround of water utilities in Indonesia, support to Nile Basin cooperation, and the design of leadership and training programs for senior water-sector decision makers. Earlier, at UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education and its predecessor IHE Delft, he held senior program and management roles in water education, institutional development and international partnerships. He led the Partnership for Water Education & Research programme, involving 18 partners from 16 countries, and contributed to the transformation of IHE into UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education.

Mr Ramsundersingh holds a Master of Science in Infrastructure Planning & Management and a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands). He completed executive education in Leading Change and Organizational Renewal at Harvard Business School (USA) and the Sustainable Development Leadership Program at the University of Cambridge (UK).

Adrian Sym

United Kingdom

As Chief Executive, Adrian Sym leads the pioneering work of the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS). Since joining AWS in 2011, Adrian has overseen the development of AWS into a truly global network that inspires the leadership across different groups that is needed to safeguard our freshwater resources.

Adrian has extensive international experience ranging from Fairtrade International in Germany to grassroots NGOs in Nepal and Bangladesh.

His diverse experience, together with his academic background (Masters in International Policy and Diplomacy), has helped to shape Adrian’s view that addressing key global challenges requires fresh leadership from all stakeholder groups.

Carolina Tornesi MacKinnon

USA

Carolina is an Argentine and USA young water professional and advocate based in San Francisco, California with a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University. Her passion for achieving SDG6 led her to become the World Youth Parliament for Water president in 2021. In her first year of presidency she was awarded the World Youth Forum Honoree award (2022) for being an influential youth.

She has spoken and participated in multiple international events (i.e. UN Water Conference 2023, Stockholm World Water Week, etc.) and was co-chair of World Water Day 2023. Carolina is also a business analyst at Brown & Caldwell, an environmental engineering firm, on their digital water team. Prior to that, Carolina had been working at Xylem (a water technology company) since 2019, holding three different roles within the Engineering Leadership Development Program and her final role was as a Sr. Product Management Analyst. She believes in making positive change in the water arena through purposeful inclusion of underrepresented voices and ideas, especially youth.

Jorge Werneck Lima

Brazil

Mr. Werneck is a senior researcher on Hydrology and IWRM at the Brazilian Corporation for Agricultural Research – Embrapa, since 2001. He is the former Director of the Regulatory Agency for Water, Energy, and Sanitation of the Federal District – Adasa/Brazil (2017-2022), and he is the current Deputy Superintendent of Plans, Programs and Projects at the National Water and Sanitation Agency – ANA/Brazil.

He is an Agricultural Engineer with master’s degree in Agronomy (Irrigation and Hydrology) and PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering (Water Resources and Environmental Technologies), always working with water monitoring, modeling and managing.

Mr. Werneck has a background on research, planning, management, and regulation of the Water and Sanitation sectors. He has an expressive scientific production on that fields, with more than 2,400 citations registered on google scholar. He was the vice-president of the Brazilian Association of Water Resources – ABRHidro (2017-2018), and of the Brazilian Association of Regulatory Agencies – ABAR (2019-2020). He acted as vice-chair of the Thematic Commission of the 8th World Water Forum (2016-2018) and, after that, he was Governor (2018-2022) and Bureau Member of the World Water Council – WWC (2020-2022), actively participating in commissions, task forces and preparation processes of the 9th Forum.

Jing Xu

China

Ms. Xu is Deputy Director General of International Economic and Technical Cooperation and Exchange Center, Ministry of Water Resources, P. R. China, and responsible for international water cooperation, policy study, capacity building, international communication and international standards.

She holds a Bachelor degree of English Literature from Beijing Foreign Studies University and a Master degree of Public Policy (specializing in Environmental Policy )from the Australian National University.

Ms. Xu joined the Ministry of Water Resources, P. R. China since 2004. Prior to her current position, she worked for the Department of International Cooperation, Science and Technology, and the Water Resources Protection Bureau of the Yellow River Conservancy Commission.

Financing Partners Group

Financing Partners Group representative (rotation, currently Maria Vink/SIDA).

Programme Subcommittee

Atem Ramsundersingh – Chair

Jorge Werneck Lima – Steering Committee member

Nchedi Moripe – Steering Committee member

Abdoulaye Sene – Chair of Regional Chairs

Jae So – Chair of Technical Committee

Yamileth Astorga – Steering Committee member

Audit & Finance Subcommittee

Angel Cárdenas Sosa – Chair

Nday Bakurin – Steering Committee member

Jorge Werneck Lima – Steering Committee member

Abdoulaye Sene – Chair of Regional Chairs

Jae So – Chair of Technical Committee

Carolina Tornesi MacKinnon – Steering Committee member

HR Subcommittee

Adrian Sym – Chair

Paulette Bynoe – Steering Committee member

Roula Majdalani – Steering Committee member

Jing Xu – Steering Committee member

Ex Officio Members

Chair of GWP Regional Chairs

GWP Executive Secretary & CEO

GWP Technical Committee Chair

UN-Water Representative

Permanent Observers

The World Bank

United Nations Development Programme

World Water Council

The Nomination Committee

Link to the Nomination Committee.