People, systems and change: harnessing the power of collective action through the Safe Water Strategy

The world knows how to deliver essential public services to everyone. What unlocks it is political will, the right systems, and leaders who understand that water and sanitation are not technical problems – they are governance ones. Patrick Moriarty has spent twenty-five years making that case, and building the intellectual tools to back it up.

His central contribution has been to shift how the sector thinks: from infrastructure to systems, from projects to services, from delivery to sustainability. The concepts of systems thinking, systems strengthening and systems leadership – now embedded in the vocabulary of the field – were developed in significant part through his work at Riva over more than two decades.

That intellectual agenda has always been matched by political engagement. Through his work in Riva and as chair of Sanitation and Water for All, he helped build the Presidential Compact model – head-of-state commitments to water and sanitation as a national priority – into a movement in more than ten countries. A civil engineer by training with a PhD in Water Resource Management, he brings technical grounding to debates that are fundamentally about politics and human behaviour. He is Irish and lives between Bristol and The Hague.

A few highlights

Secretary General of the Riva Network – leading the transformation of IRC from a Dutch NGO into a federated global network of nationally-led organisations
An architect of the Presidential Compacts movement – head-of-state commitments to water and sanitation as a national priority, now active in more than ten countries across Africa and Asia
Co-founder of the One For All alliance – a unique partnership with Water for People built around a shared strategy, shared results framework (Destination 2030), and a jointly registered UK legal entity; one of the few genuine peer alliances in international development
Co-founder of the Agenda for Change – a network of organisations committed to driving systems change in water and sanitation globally
Pioneer of the systems strengthening agenda in water and sanitation – co-developing the life-cycle costing approach to sustainable services, and convening the All Systems Connect Symposium to connect water, health, climate and social justice
Working languages: English and French

LinkedIn link

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pbmoriarty

Metadata Description

Patrick Moriarty metaData description text.

Profile quote

Patrick Moriarty - profile

First name

Patrick

Author role

Secondary Author

RIVA author profile link

Sára Bori

Language English

Surname

Bori

Member

Riva Global

Netherlands

RIVA role

Expert

Job description

Knowledge management and communication expert

Listing introduction

Sára works at the intersection of knowledge, evidence and influence. As a knowledge management and communications expert, she helps institutions harvest outcomes and lessons as systems evolve, ensuring that learning travels between countries, organisations and levels of decision making.

Sára Bori’s work is shaped by an early, lived understanding of how water systems touch everyday life. In the Netherlands, through a grandfather who settled in the 1980s in a town newly carved from the sea, and an aunt who made her home on a boat. In rural Hungary, her family relied on self‑supply, so during her childhood years she had to get drinking water from her grandmother’s piped town connection because the water at home was unsafe to drink. More than 30 years later, she lives in the same region and sees how those self‑supply challenges persist and are now exacerbated by climate change. These stories continue to guide how she understands development, inequality and public systems.

Sára works at the intersection of knowledge, evidence and influence. As a knowledge management and communications expert, she helps institutions harvest outcomes and lessons as systems evolve, ensuring that learning travels between countries, organisations and levels of decision‑making. A core part of this work is translating complex evidence into high‑quality publications and audiovisual products – through openness to innovation, rigorous editorial processes and publishing to recognised quality standards - so that insights are credible, accessible and fit for purpose. Her attention to detail, combined with strong project management skills, ensures that complex, multi‑stakeholder initiatives are delivered with clarity, coherence and care.

Over the past decade, Sara has led flagship knowledge and communications initiatives in the water and sanitation sector with global reach. Across her work, she keeps returning to one question: who benefits when systems function – and who pays the price when they don’t? Seeing how access to water creates and reinforces social divides, she consistently interrogates the ultimate goal of generating, sharing and using knowledge: achieving social justice for all.

A few highlights

Over 10 years’ experience in global knowledge management, communications and learning for systems change
Adviser to the Government of the Netherlands on strategic communications for World Water Week (2020–2026) and the UN 2023 Water Conference
Co‑author of UNICEF’s WASH Knowledge Management Strategy 2022–2025
Knowledge management lead for All Systems Connect 2023, international symposium, The Hague, the Netherlands
Communications lead for All Systems Go Africa 2022, supporting national water, sanitation and hygiene systems strengthening across the African continent
Project manager of annual reports, strategies and organisational annual planning for over eight years
Keen implementer of outcome harvesting to capture stories of change
Working languages: English, Dutch, Hungarian

LinkedIn link

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahelenebori

Profile quote

Sára Bori

First name

Sára

External authors

Author role

Primary Author

External author

Laura Brunson

External author/speaker first name

Laura

External author/speaker surname

Brunson

External organisation name

Water For People

External author/speaker link

http://www.waterforpeople.org/

Job description

Global Director of Monitoring & Strategic Accountability

Author role

Secondary Author

External author

Ingeborg Krukkert

External author/speaker first name

Ingeborg

External author/speaker surname

Krukkert

Publisher

IRC

Place published

The Hague

Page sections

content

This synthesis document shares the story and lessons learned, so far, from collective action by organisations supported by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation's Safe Water Strategy. Together, we are strengthening the systems needed to deliver safe water, sanitation and hygiene services to all households, health care facilities and schools within our 11 partner districts in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Niger and Uganda by 2030 and forever. While our collective action takes place at district level, our goal is to inspire replication and wider impact. This note is part of a set of advocacy and outreach materials designed to ensure that what we learn is shared and adopted in more districts in the countries where we work, and in other countries. Read them all here.

Title

People, systems and change: harnessing the power of collective action through the Safe Water Strategy

Downloadable documents

Document

people_systems_and_change_harnessing_the_power_of_collective_action_through_the_safe_water_strategy_0.pdf (4.69 MB)