High Level Panel

Henk Ovink is the founding Commissioner and Executive Director for the Global Commission on the Economics of Water. He was the first global water ambassador, appointed in 2015 by the Dutch Cabinet as Special Envoy for International Water Affairs. As Ambassador to the UN on Water he led the second UN Water Conference in 2023, the first since 1977. Henk is also the Chair of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) Board of Governors.

Henk served on President Obama’s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force where he led the long-term innovation, resilience, and rebuilding efforts and developed and led the groundbreaking ‘Rebuild by Design’ competition. Before joining the Task Force Ovink was both Acting Director General of Spatial Planning and Water Affairs and Director National Spatial Planning for the Netherlands after multiple roles in the private sector and academia.

Henk currently works as Senior Fellow at Wageningen University on green water research and diplomacy. Henk is also visiting fellow at Mariana Mazzucato’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at UCL in London, working with professor Mazzucato and team on water economics, advancing the work of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water.

Henk holds an honorary doctorate at Delft University, and is affiliated to the Center for Resilient Cities and Landscapes at Columbia University’s GSAPP and Climate School. His book - written together with Jelte Boeijenga - “Too Big. Rebuild by Design: A Transformative Approach to Climate Change” explores his climate and water work for the Obama Administration.

In 2023 Henk Ovink was the 10^th recipient of the Foreign Affairs Decoration of Honor in Gold for his global leadership on water diplomacy.

Tanja Miškova is Ambassador-at-Large for Water Diplomacy at the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of Slovenia. In her work, she focuses on the three priority areas of Slovenia's Water Diplomacy: water & peace nexus, transboundary water cooperation, and water & climate nexus, along with two crosscutting priorities – human rights based approach and gender equality. Her portfolio includes environmental peacebuilding and circular economy. Tanja also serves as Slovenia's Deputy Commissioner to the International Sava River Basin Commission.
Prior to her current position, she acted as Director General for Multilateral Affairs and Development Cooperation, Head of Department for Emerging Challenges, Ambassador to Egypt (non-resident to Jordan, KSA, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman), National Coordinator for the Union for the Mediterranean, Diplomatic Advisor to the President of Slovenia, and Deputy Head of Mission to Israel

Dr. Dinara Ziganshina is the Director at the Scientific
Information Centre of Interstate Commission for Water
Coordination (SIC ICWC) in Central Asia, a regional
organisation that contributes to fostering transboundary water
cooperation in the region through data, information and
knowledge development and dissemination. Dr. Ziganshina is
the Chair of the Implementation Committee under the
Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary
Watercourses and International Lakes (The Water
Convention); a Governor at the World Water Council and an
Associate Professor at the Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and
Agricultural Mechanization Engineers. Dr. Ziganshina has
more than 25 years’ experience working as a legal and policy
expert in water resources management at national and
transboundary levels and managing and coordinating regional projects in multi-stakeholder
environments.

Dr Martina Klimes is Theme Lead for Shared Waters Cooperation and Senior Manager and Advisor on Climate, Water, and Peace at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI). With over 15 years of experience in dialogue facilitation, conflict resolution, and political-security analysis, she has worked across diverse contexts, combining fieldwork with informal diplomacy efforts around the world. She has led dialogues on shared water resources in different parts of the Middle East and Central Asia. Martina served on the Scientific Programme Committee of World Water Week between 2019 and 2025.

In recent years, Martina has focused on deepening the understanding of shared climate and water-related security risks, including the growing challenge of disinformation aimed at undermining water cooperation. She is also the co-editor of the Routledge Water Diplomacy Handbook (2025).

Dr. Alice Aureli is an expert in water resources with a PhD in hydrogeology.
As of January 2025, she occupies the position of Vice President of the International Water Resources Association (IWRA). Until June 2023, she held the position of Head of the Groundwater Systems and Water Cooperation Section at UNESCO. In this capacity, she coordinate the monitoring of the UN 2030 Agenda SDG6 water cooperation indicator. She directed the UNESCO's International Shared Aquifers Resources Management (ISARM) programme and the global assessment of the planet's transboundary aquifers project. From 2002 to 2012, she led the UNESCO team that assisted the UN International Law Commission in drafting the Articles of the Law on Transboundary Aquifers. Since September 2024, Dr. Aureli has been overseeing the liaison team with the UN System of the International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH). She is a board member of the UNESCO Chair on Sustainability at the University Polytechnic of Barcelona, in Spain. She also serves as a senior advisor to the SADC Groundwater Management Institute.

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Yogita Mumssen, Practice Manager

Water Policy & Regulations Unit

World Bank Group Water Department

Yogita Mumssen is the Practice Manager that leads the Water Policy & Regulations unit within the World Bank Group's Water Department, where she oversees a portfolio spanning regulatory reform, institutional development, and private participation in infrastructure. Her expertise encompasses the economics of water utility regulation, access to finance, and water supply and sanitation policy. Prior to this she was Practice Manager for Western and Central Africa, where she managed a team and portfolio that focuses on sustaining water resources, delivering water, sanitation and irrigation services, and building resilience in 22 countries of West and Central Africa, and led the development of a strategy for enhanced water security for the region. Yogita previously managed water, sanitation, and electricity projects in the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and in Latin America and the Caribbean. She has also created and managed regional and global multi-donor trust funds that cover an array of sectors and development approaches. Yogita was a Presidential Exchange Fellow at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) where she worked in IFC’s Global Infrastructure Investment unit. She has worked extensively on regulation, institutional reform, sector restructuring, private sector participation, results-based financing and pro-poor service delivery across the infrastructure sectors. She has degrees from Brown University and the London School of Economics.

Dr. Florika Fink-Hooijer
DIRECTOR-GENERAL, HEALTH EMERGENCY, PREPAREDNESS & RESPONSE AUTHORITY (DG HERA)
Dr. Florika Fink-Hooijer leads the DG HERA in the European Commission. DG HERA’s primary mission is to counter vulnerabilities and strategic dependencies within the EU in relation to threat analysis, development, production, procurement, stockpiling and distribution of medical countermeasures, irrespective of the cause of the health emergency. Florika combines strong leadership skills with in-depth experience in EU policy making and international negotiations. A lawyer by training, she holds extensive expertise in foreign and security policy, humanitarian aid and disaster risk reduction, including civil-military cooperation as well as environmental policies.

Viorel Gutu, a national of the Republic of Moldova and Romania, was appointed FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Europe and Central Asia in February 2024. He previously served as FAO Subregional Coordinator for Central Asia and Representative for Türkiye and Uzbekistan, and earlier led the FAO Tajikistan office. With rich experience in the private and public sectors, before joining FAO in 2014, he was Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry in Moldova, as well as Economic Affairs Officer with the UN in Timor-Leste. He holds a Doctor degree in economics.

He is a national of Austria with over 15 years of experience in environmental diplomacy, policy and law. His career began at the regional and national levels and joined UNEP in 2005, fulfilling growing responsibilities, including as deputy and acting director of UNEP’s Law Division (2019–2021).
Among his key achievements are his work on the Montevideo Environmental Law Programme, the improvement of governance of natural resources, human rights and the environment, and the implementation of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). In 2012, he led the organization of the first World Congress on Justice, Governance and Law for Environmental Sustainability, at the Rio+20 Conference.
He holds a doctorate in international law and a master's in advanced international studies.

Anne Le Guennec joined Veolia in 1998. An engineer and graduate of the University of Technology of Compiègne, she began her career in France, in the Cleaning sector.

Over her 20-year career, Anne has acquired considerable experience in all areas of business development, technical and operational management, and leadership.

She previously served as CEO of Veolia Waste Recycling and Recovery in France,member of the Group's Management Committee and has held senior leadership positions in the Middle East,

including CEO of Enova by Veolia and Senior Executive Vice President for Business Development at Veolia Middle East. 

In April 2023, she was appointed as CEO of Veolia's global water technologies activities and joined the Group's Executive Committee.

Bruce Gordon is WHO’s WASH and Health Unit Head and serves as UN-Water Vice-Chair since January 2024. He oversees a portfolio of work that broadly falls under two pillars: the development of global guidelines on drinking-water, sanitation, and hand hygiene; and WHO’s global monitoring of the WASH enabling environment through the UN-Water GLAAS, together with monitoring of access to WASH through the WHO/UNICEF JMP, and WASH-related burden of disease.
Current priority interests include strengthening WASH in health care facilities and in health programmes, such as maternal health, infection prevention and control, antimicrobial resistance, neglected tropical diseases and quality of care.
Prior to joining the WASH unit at WHO in 2004, he contributed to the Organization’s work on sustainable development with a focus on children’s health and environment. He has an academic background in biochemistry and environmental management.

Dr. Olcay Ünver is an internationally recognized expert in water governance and sustainable development and Professor of Practice at Arizona State University.

He led the United Nations World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP) and oversaw preparation of the United Nations World Water Development Reports. He later served as Vice-Chair of UN-Water and led FAO’s global water portfolio, contributing to FAO’s flagship State of Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture (SOLAW) report.

He is co-author of the 2024 book Sustainable Development and Water Security: Towards Achieving a Water-Secure World and received the International Water Resources Association’s Crystal Drop Award in 2023.

Professor Bedir Tekinerdogan is a computer scientist with over 30 years of experience in software engineering, systems engineering, and information technology. He earned his MSc and PhD degrees in Computer Science from the University of Twente, the Netherlands. He is currently a full professor and chair of the Information Technology Group at Wageningen University and Research.

Professor Tekinerdogan is recognized among Stanford University’s World’s Top 2% Scientists, appearing in both the career-long and annual rankings, and placing in the top 0.2 percent globally in 2025. He has authored over 500 scientific publications and edited 15 academic books. As a principal researcher and lead architect, he has contributed to numerous large-scale industrial and research projects in domains including consumer electronics, automotive systems, critical infrastructures, cyber-physical and defense systems, precision agriculture, and energy systems. His work bridges theory and practice, with a strong focus on software and systems architecture, product line engineering, model-based systems engineering, data science, and AI-enabled systems.

A key aspect of his work is systems thinking, through which he addresses the complexity of modern socio-technical systems. He adopts a holistic approach that integrates components, interactions, and stakeholder perspectives to design scalable, resilient, and adaptive systems. His research emphasizes lifecycle thinking, interoperability, and alignment between technological solutions, business goals, and societal impact.

In addition to his research, he is a committed educator and mentor. He has designed and delivered more than 30 academic courses, provided professional training to over 50 companies worldwide, supervised more than 40 PhD students, and graduated over 100 MSc students.

Mustafa Salih Sarıkaya Short Bio

Mustafa Salih Sarıkaya currently serves as a coordinator at Turkish Water Institute (SUEN) responsible for national and international capacity development programs and publications. In his role, he led and coordinated projects and publications covering multiple dimensions of water management, as well as capacity building initiatives in the water sector.

Before joining SUEN, he worked as a consultant and project leader in various feasibility studies, projects, master plans and institutional strengthening programs in the fields of water, wastewater and solid waste in countries including Albania, Azerbaijan, Germany, Netherlands, Turkiye and USA.

As a water economist with a BSc degree in Economics from Missouri State University, he completed his MSc degree at the Rotterdam Erasmus University with his thesis on “Real Options Valuation in Renewable Energy Projects”. He also received certified trainings in environmental management, water management, hydrodiplomacy and project management.

Prof. Ing. Guido D’Urso, PhD (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0251-4668) earned his Civil Hydraulic Engineering degree cum laude at University of Naples (Italy) and the Phd in Environmental Sciences at Wageningen Agricultural University. Since 2006 is Full Professor of Water Management and Remote Sensing at Dept. of Agricultural Sciences at the University of Naples Federico II. He’s Member of the Academic Senate and President of the Commission for Research of the University of Naples Federico II, and Delegate of Rector for International Cooperation and Development. From 2011-2020 he has coordinated the PhD Course on “Agricultural Sciences”.

He has been working since early ‘90s in the field of Agricultural Engineering, developing new methodologies for Earth Observation data interpretation for water management in agriculture and related hydrological processes. He has coordinated several international research projects in this field, as documented by more than 120 publications on international scientific journals. His research activities, carried out in several countries, including U.S.A., Australia, Near East, have also interested the development of agro-hydrological models for irrigation management and the estimation of soil water content by means of in-situ and remote active microwaves. He has started in 2006 the first “spin-off” company of the University of Naples Federico II, called “Ariespace” with the  mission of developing operative applications of satellite remote sensing for  land and water management and environmental monitoring.

Junhan Yun is a general manager and a civil engineer served in Korea Water Resources Corporation (K-water), which is state-owned water utility of Korea. He has engaged extensive water-related projects such as dam construction, drinking water supply and hydro-power generation in domestic and global location with the technical and financial perspectives since 2005. He devoted the climate change adaptation program and corporate strategy. He has been keen on leveraging the water management with digital technologies, artificial intelligence and remote sensing. Currently, he is exploring the opportunities for digital water solutions including a digital twin water management system, AI water treatment plant and smart water network management across the world. In addition, he is dealing with the technical consulting projects based on the collaboration with multi-lateral development banks and governments such as an integrated water resources management and drinking water supply. He holds a bachelor degree for civil engineering at Hanyang University in Seoul, South Korea and a master degree for hydrology and water resources of hydraulic engineering at Tsinghua University in Beijing, PRC, and the completed the coursework of a Ph.D. for environmental engineering at Chungbuk National University of Korea. He is a member of Korea Civil Society and Korea Water Resources Society.

Mehmet Kitis is professor in Dept. of Environmental Engineering in Suleyman Demirel University, Türkiye. He has a Ph.D. degree in Environmental Engineering and Science from Clemson University, USA. He worked as a process engineer in CH2MHILL Inc., CA USA. His main research areas include water/wastewater treatment and reuse, membrane processes, industrial cleaner production applications, industrial water efficiency. He has been making research and consulting for more than 25 years in these areas. Prof. Kitis has published 126 peer-reviewed papers and books/book chapters (web of science h-index: 39) and presented more than 200 conference papers. He worked in 78 research and engineering projects including those of USA AWWARF, USEPA, EU IPA, TÜBİTAK, NATO, MEDRC, Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Turkish Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia National Science, Technology and Innovation Plan, and others. He received 26 national/international scientific/engineering awards. He has advised a total of 29 M.Sc. and Ph.D. thesis. He has involved in a total of 49 technical/academic/administrative positions including department chair, vice rector, consultant to ministries, international companies and various industries, research institute director (TÜBİTAK MAM), editorial board member, chamber of commerce advisor, and others.