About Us
The International Organization for Water Operators Partnerships: WOPs International
WOPs International has been recently founded by a group of globally renowned water professionals, who are specifically known for their WOPs expertise and wide range of international experience, as an international non-governmental organization based in Barcelona, Spain, with the objective of supporting access of poor communities in the global South to sustainable water and sanitation services, and building the needed capacity of public water utilities, through the WOPs approach. The Organization will seek to scale up the WOPs practice not only through operational support and facilitation of WOPs projects, but also through its global high-level advocacy for the practice and the provision of systematic guidance on WOPs implementation and best practices.
WOPs International will make use of Barcelona’s role as a major European hub for collaboration across the Mediterranean and for North-South cooperation in general, to bring all WOPs players and stakeholders together. The Organization will connect UN and non-UN substantive supporting agencies to WOPs practitioners in order to facilitate and enhance the support of such agencies to the practice. WOPs International will also connect beneficiary utilities to finance and investment in collaboration with bilateral and multilateral donors, regional development banks, and other IFIs that are active in supporting the water and sanitation sector globally. Specifically, the Organization will focus on keeping close ties to UN-Water and initiatives such as the UNDP-led Global Water Solidarity (GWS) initiative, which is an advocacy platform that calls on European and other Northern countries to allow local administrations and water utilities to use 1% of their turnover for solidarity-based international development assistance
Founders
Mr. Digby Davies is a widely recognized international expert in the field of water utility cooperation and capacity development.
Digby was a senior staff member of the World Bank working for the Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program.
In 1995 Digby joined GIZ (then GTZ) the German government international technical cooperation serving successively as GIZ Team Leader and Principal Adviser first in Yemen then the Palestinian Territories. From 2005-7 he was based in UN-ESCWA in Beirut as GIZ Team Leader of the water sector regional cooperation programme across 13 ESCWA countries. In 2007 he used German technical cooperation funds to set up the Arab Countries Water Utilities Association (ACWUA) for water sector cooperation and networking in the MENA Region.
Digby is a graduate of University College London and holds an advanced degree in Management Sciences from the University of Manchester. Over the last decade he has carried out consultancies for the World Bank, GIZ, EU etc. in countries such as Albania, Armenia, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania and others. His conference papers and publications include six case studies of water operators’ partnerships (WOPs) in Asia and Africa published by UN-Habitat in 2012-15.
Mr. Fuad Bateh is currently engaging in consultancies for a variety of organizations and institutions (e.g. a Advisor to Global Water Partnership – Mediterranean) working in the field of development related to environment and water resources.
Mr. Bateh was most recently the Water Governance and Infrastructure Advisor to the Office of the Quartet (OQ) in Jerusalem where he engaged with a number of key actors (Palestinians, Israelis, donors and international businesses) to support the implementation of the economic initiative and implement the OQ’s development agenda with a specific focus on advancing the large-scale desalination facility for the Gaza Strip project. Prior to joining the Office of the Quartet, Mr. Bateh was seconded between 2011 -2015 from the Palestinian Authority as Senior Advisor of Environment & Water at the Secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean where he served as the Task Force Leader on the Desalination Facility for the Gaza Strip project as well as engaged in regional environment and water political processes and framework programs.
Mr. Bateh had earlier served as Advisor to the Palestinian Minister of Water working on multilateral negotiations and water sector reform in Palestine following several years as the legal advisor on environment & water permanent status issues for the Palestinian Negotiations team. His earlier legal career included work in Washington, DC first as a project finance attorney, and then a legal consultant to the World Bank’s Environmental and International Law unit where he provided support on transboundary water projects, grants of the Global Environment Facility and participated in a resolution of a disagreement on the Indus Waters Treat
Mr. Patrick Quinn has extensive senior leadership experience, working for a global organization in the private sector. Mr. Quinn has held leadership roles developing and executing corporate and business unit growth strategy, competitive analysis, brand positioning, strategic planning and business plan implementation in the private sector.
Since 2009 Patrick has focused on placing water at the forefront of the global political agenda to address the complexity of water resources challenges from an environmental, institutional, and economic perspective. Mr. Quinn recently has advised and completed research for UN-HABITAT Global Water Operators Partnership Alliance.
He is currently examining and advising members of the Canadian Government on how the Federal Government of Canada and Canadian water utilities can work in partnership to assist water operators in the Global South to provide more equitable access to water and sanitation services for the marginalized and impoverished communities of the Global South.
Mr Quinn holds a Master of Science (MSc.) Renewable Resources Environment, a Diploma in Environmental Science from McGill University, a Master of Business (MBA), and Economics degrees from Concordia University.
A native of Montreal, Patrick has interacted with stakeholders in government, academia, business communities and serves on several non-profit boards in the public sector. Patrick currently serves on four boards: as treasurer for one, the chief executive officer for another, and lead independent member for two other non-profit environmental boards.