As dike manager at the Hunze en Aa’s water board, Geert-Jan ten Brink is not only found in Northeast Drenthe and East Groningen. Occasionally he travels far outside the working area of his water board to lend a helping hand. He has just returned from a two-week stay in Mozambique.
“Too much and too little water at the wrong times,” says Ten Brink in the Radio Drenthe program Cassata the problems of the African country together. “If it is too dry, there is no drinking water. And if there are floods, the question is how to keep the densely populated area safe.”
It is not the first time that Ten Brink has appeared in Africa for his work. He could also be found in Burkina Faso. “As water boards, we mainly transfer knowledge. Because we have a lot of experience with water systems in the Netherlands.”
Ten Brink thinks it is important that Dutch water boards also look beyond the national border. “We have a moral responsibility to make a little bit of our knowledge available to people who are much less fortunate. You should be ashamed of yourself if you were to criticize that. We don’t do crazy things. If we can contribute with our knowledge to, for example, get the water systems in Mozambique in order, then that is a very nice transfer of knowledge.”
One of the projects in which Hunze en Aa’s played a supporting role in recent years was involving the local population in the problems with water management in their own residential area. According to Ten Brink, the project was a success. “A lot of rain fell in the spring of 2023 and the neighborhoods where intervention took place went completely well. There were no floods and no people died as a result of flooding.”
The dike governor describes Mozambique as ‘a country under construction’. “It is a former Portuguese colony and a civil war took place until the mid-1990s. In recent years, you have seen that people are moving to urban areas because of poverty. Then neighborhoods without infrastructure arise and the misery begins. What really needs to be addressed is the maintenance of their systems. We are very busy with that and fortunately there are a lot of people who want to participate.”
Ten Brink is impressed by the helping hands on site. “And especially from the hardworking ladies who cleaned the ditches. Sometimes with their baby still on their back. Then such a child gets a piece of bread in between and mommy goes on happily,” he says. “Despite the poverty, they also see perspective. It seems very little if you earn 1.45 euros a day, but that will get a local economy going. And it will become safer in the residential area. That also gives me the strength to continue to go.”
Previously, the approach also appeared to be successful in Burkino Faso. “Local people also clean ditches there, for example. And that has paid off.” Behind the scenes, diplomacy is even more important, Ten Brink emphasizes. “For example, I entered into discussions with our ambassador and the Minister of Infrastructure of Mozambique about the resources that come through the embassy.” And not without success: “25 million will be available for the next 5 years from the Netherlands and Mozambique.”
According to Ten Brink, the money is well spent. “We have a local team there. We work together with the Association of Dutch Municipalities. And we train people locally. So those control mechanisms are there.”