Even most bureaucratic cooperation is a little bit like a romantic relationship. It involves love, hate, drama, happiness, success, and daily life. And every romance starts with a first contact. It could be to meet at the petrol station, the read of an article or dating on the internet.Places and circumstances where we meet for better cooperation or the romantic relationship can be considered as catalysts.
For cooperation on the level of municipalities, regions, or countries we often talk about water and water management as catalyst. Because evidence shows: Discussion about water is a lot about cooperation.
However, in many cases talking about water is too straight forward. My own experience in different places shows – talking about water is sometimes too sensitive. We have to bring stakeholders together on a different level first. For instance at an art exhibition about water. Or we do a tourism project together – the hiking trail along a river – beneficial for everyone. Once the first cooperation works we can move to a more sensitive topic. More cooperation step-by-step.
Building trust takes time.
Designing cooperation includes creative solutions such as creating new platforms to meet in a targeted way. In order to make the first step for the creation of harmonic and cooperative relationships between two or more parties.
Cooperation design is a bit like creating dating platforms for love.
Lucas Beck, 14 July 2018