Webmarketing consultant and social entrepreneur Nhat Vhuong is passionate about tackling water scarcity. A Vietnamese refugee, who grew up in Switzerland, he worked in Japan for eight years before returning to Switzerland in 2015.

In 2017, Nhat Vhuong watched a video on the internet about a machine invented by a Spanish retired engineer, which can produce drinkable water from the air. Nhat saw its potential for humanitarian projects and decided to raise funds to install one in a refugee camp in Lebanon. The machine now produces 500 litres per day and benefits 150 families. He set up Water Inception, a social enterprise which aims ‘to raise awareness about the upcoming global water crisis and provide water technologies to communities facing water scarcity around the world’.

Water Inception was just an idea when Nhat first took part in the Caux Dialogue on Land and Security as an Emerging Leader in 2017, and he has since returned and become an active member of the Caux community. He found it inspiring to meet people from so many backgrounds ‘fighting the same fight to protect lands’. His visits have expanded his network, and he has maintained close bonds with other participants of the CDLS, using their insights and advice to guide his own work. The CDLS’ understanding of the importance to peace of environmental security and access to adequate environmental resources ties in perfectly with the ethos of his work. 

Since 2017 Nhat has been recognized at the World Economic Forum, built a successful crowdfunder and raised enough capital to make Water Inception a reality. As well as providing water technologies to vulnerable communities facing water shortages, it also raises awareness about the world water crisis and new water technologies, including at the CDLS. Nhat believes the CDLS could benefit from more direct discussion of water and that that there are many Swiss water organizations who could offer productive insights to the discussions about land security that are at the heart of the conference. 

Chau Tang Duncan is applying over 20 years’ experience in banking, trade and commercial diplomacy to improving the financial access of disadvantaged communities.

Chau Tang Duncan has served as Director for Investment and Trade and as Investment Commissioner for both the UK and Australian governments, and as Trade Commissioner for Malaysia. Today she is the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Earthbanc, a financial technology company which channels investment in renewables, sustainable development and community projects.

‘I first came to Caux in 2010,’ says Chau. ‘The experience opened my mind and heart to embracing my role in the connection between people and planet. Since then, I have strived to integrate this in my personal and professional life, working to mobilize investment into renewable energy and sustainable development, and working with people who share the vision of a low carbon sustainable future.’

Earthbanc green decision metrics will combine second party opinions and financial and green investment metrics to improve data collection, reporting and support for blending finance for ecosystem restoration.

Since participating in the 2019 Caux Dialogue on Land and Security (CDLS), Chau has been setting up Earthbanc in the UK and Estonia. She is working with others from the CDLS to help bridge the financial divide between refugees and internally displaced people in Africa and the diaspora in Europe. Earthbanc has established a fully functioning platform for this, and is now seeking capital to provide financial access to these communities.

As a direct outcome of the CDLS, Earthbanc is collaborating with the Government of Meghalaya in North East India to develop a platform to enable farmers, other producers and the government itself to receive ecosystem services payments with every transaction in the marketplace.

Tom Duncan is CEO of Earthbanc and passionate about problem solving and strategic systems thinking, primarily in regenerative economics, green finance and financial technology, as a means of restoring relationships between society and nature. He first came to Caux as a Caux Scholar in 2007 and helped to launch the Environment & Economy Group, which was a precursor to the Caux Dialogue on Land and Security (CDLS). He attended CDLS in 2013, 2018 and 2019.

For Tom Duncan, the CDLS offers a unique opportunity to explore world problems in an atmosphere of honesty, trust, inspiration and integrity. Time slows down in Caux and the profound can emerge from a place of stillness and quiet, looking out at the majestic mountains and shimmering lake, amongst inspiring changemakers. ‘I have experienced great healing in this place,’ he says. ‘I have made friends for life, and feel that together we can change the world, by bridging its divides and restoring a healthy planet.’

Tom grew up on two Australian farms, one in an inland desert, and the other in mountainous land on the east coast. Inspired by the energy of Caux, he has committed himself to enable land restoration and to help scale up the restoration of mangroves in the delta region of Myanmar.

He is an entrepreneur and wears several hats professionally, with experience in fund management, technology development, investment banking and commercialization, in many countries and at all levels of society. He advises governments and institutional clients on designing financial instruments to support the upgrade of infrastructure and on the issuance of green bonds on blockchain.

He is now working with others from the CDLS on a project to empower communities in Myanmar, impacted by rising sea levels. Some have lost their homes to cyclonic storm surges. The project will link investment and finance to vulnerable coastal communities, so that they can restore the mangrove forests that defend them against the sea. It will begin with 20,000 ha of degraded mangrove ecosystems in the delta region of Myanmar. Large-scale restoration and marine permaculture here will benefit more than 5,000 households.

Once implemented, this project could be replicated across the remaining 350,000 ha of degraded coast in Myanmar and Bangladesh, enough land to plant between one and three billion mangrove trees by 2050. Three billion mangroves trees would sequester at least three gigatonnes of carbon – about 1.5% of humanity’s total emissions over the past 25 years.

At this year’s CDLS Tom was introduced to Conrad Sangma, the Chief Minister of Meghalaya. He is now developing collaborative partnerships with the Government of Meghalaya to deliver infrastructure to improve water quality, with the potential to deal with the pollution caused by no longer active coal mines. This would enable the Government of Meghalaya to create green jobs for its people, to earn revenue for industry, government and communities, and to protect water sources on which over a billion people depend.

Some billion people rely on water sourced in the hills of Meghalaya, in North East India. One of those responsible for water conservation in the State, Aibanshngain Swer, took part in the Summer Academy on Land, Security and Climate in Caux in June 2019.

Aibanshngain Swer is Director of the Meghalaya Basin Development Authority, CEO of the Meghalaya Water Foundation, Divisional Officer of the Conservation Training Institute and General Manager of the Meghalaya Basin Management Agency. He is also Director of the Meghalaya Institute of Governance, which works to promote good governance in the public, private and voluntary sectors.

He describes the Summer Academy as ‘a fantastic initiative that honed the skills of dialogue with which we approach situations of conflict, environmental degradation and climate change. Conversations during the Summer Academy have already sparked new project prospects.’

The participants in the Summer Academy interacted with the Caux Dialogue on Land and Security (CDLS), which ran concurrently. They spoke of the harsh realities of climate change, climate refugees and the need for dialogue and collaboration to safeguard the natural environment and to maintain good relations between neighbours. ‘Dialogue was recognized as one of the key activities for trust building which will open the way for good governance, peace and security,’ says Aibanshngain. ‘We shared examples of communities pioneering their own solutions to the challenges of land degradation, conflict and climate change.’

Following the CDLS, Aibanshngain joined others from Caux at the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP14) in Delhi. They presented the implementation of the Meghalaya Water Policy, which addresses the conservation and protection of the state’s water sources. The policy is the first to be approved by any state in India and aims to involve communities in conservation and sustainable development.

‘Our goal in Meghalaya is to build a low-carbon economy through complete involvement and ownership of communities,’ Conrad Sangma, the Chief Minister of Meghalaya, told the opening session of the Caux Dialogue on Land and Security (CDLS) in June 2019. ‘I acknowledge that we have a long way to go, but we have definitely taken some significant steps to restore our land and build climate change resilience amongst our communities.’

Conrad Sangma, who also launched the first Summer Academy on Land, Security and Climate, which ran alongside the CDLS, spoke of the long-standing link between Initiatives of Change (IofC) and Meghalaya. In the 1960s, the guiding principles of IofC were used by leaders of the non-violent movement which eventually led to the creation of the State of Meghalaya in 1972. More recently, many officials and leaders from the State have been trained at Asia Plateau, Panchgani, the IofC headquarters in India. In 1994 Meghalaya sent a government delegation to Caux. ‘Our engagement with IofC is long and continuing,’ said Sangma, ‘and I am glad to have added another chapter to this through participation in this year’s Caux Dialogue.’

As in the rest of the world, Meghalaya’s traditional ethos of environmental conservation and community governance has been diluted in the last few decades, leading to land degradation in some regions. In addition, the impact of climate change is being felt in multiple ways. The rainfall pattern in the state has become erratic and extreme weather events have become more frequent. Against this background, Sangma’s government has placed sustainability, environmental conservation and strengthening community-level governance at the centre of its development efforts.

Under his leadership, Meghalaya has become the first state in India to draft a comprehensive Water Policy. In recent years the state has also strengthened community governance through nurturing new village-level bodies that are in sync with traditional institutions. Some Meghalayan villages are lighthouses for rural communities across the globe, and the state government’s efforts have been appreciated both by the Government of India and by international donor agencies.

Now Sangma wants the experts he met at CDLS to deliver sustainable projects which will enable the Government of Meghalaya to provide green jobs for its people and revenue for industry, government and communities. ‘I extend a warm welcome to all of you to visit Meghalaya and to help us with more thoughts and ideas to better solve the challenges of environmental conservation,’ said Sangma. ‘I am also certain that there is much to learn from the sustainability-related interventions of both the government and the communities of Meghalaya. I urge the CDLS to engage with Meghalaya and to extend this engagement to the whole of North East India in times to come.’

As a first step in this direction, Meghalyan officials worked alongside the IofC international delegation to the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP14) in Delhi, where they presented the implementation of the Meghalaya Water Policy.

“I am aware of the impact of digital technology on my everyday life.” Do you agree or disagree with that sentence?’ Rainer Gude, Partnerships Manager of Initiatives of Change (IofC) Switzerland, asked the audience. The participants reflected. Then they moved to position themselves on Uni Mail’s wide stairs with most of them standing in the middle, slightly towards the right, showing their agreement with the statement. So began IofC Switzerland’s interactive session for Swiss Digital Day, at Geneva’s Uni Mail on 3 September 2019.

The Geneva festivities, which carried the theme of ‘human beings at the heart of digital transformation’, were co-organized by the University of Geneva, the state of Geneva, the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland and the International Committee of the Red Cross. As a partner of the event, IofC had the honour of launching the event.

During the interactive session, Christophe Barman (co-founder of Loyco) introduced participants to Fabrice, a fictional character who uses many forms of digital technology in his personal, professional and social life. The aim was to create a dialogue between citizens and experts on the impact of digital technologies.

The exchanges started on the individual level, with the ‘smart me’. Fabrice has a digital watch and depends on social media and on smartphone apps. Like him, people rely more and more on artificial intelligence (AI) to make everyday decisions for them. Jean-Henry Morin, Professor at the University of Geneva, highlighted the importance of digital literacy and of educating people ‘to learn to live with digital technology’.

At home, Fabrice is accompanied and aided by his automated personal assistant, Alexa. The ‘smart home’, with this kind of digital device, is a response to our search for comfort, affordable energy and for safety, explained Daniela Sauter from Resideo. This ‘allows one to have more time to be more happy’. The audience expressed worries about data protection and recent scandals linked to such devices. Sauter assured them, that data protection is a priority: ‘Evolution is underway’.

In the fictional Geneva where Fabrice lives, digital methods optimize the management of traffic, lighting, waste and security. The Geneva of tomorrow may resemble it. ‘The smart city knows how to use new technologies to serve the town, the canton, the country of tomorrow,’ explained Patricia Solioz Mathys, Executive Director of Smart City, SIG. Data protections depend on ‘each person supporting the democratic system’, she added.  

Finally, the participants learnt that Fabrice’s role at work will soon be taken over by a chatbot. According to Christophe Barman, 30-40 per cent of jobs at Loyco are at risk of disappearing within the next five years. The team is encouraging employees to think about the potential evolution of their roles in the light of robotization and to start gaining the skills they will need in the future.  

Before proceeding to the next session on the subject of work in the digital era, the participants were asked to position themselves again in response to the same questions as at the beginning of the event. The positions they chose – with most of them standing towards the end of the spectrum –  indicated an evolution in their awareness of the impact new technologies will have on society. 

Once again, IofC demonstrated its experience in creating a space for reflection and discussion on the subject of these new technologies, with thematic input from experts on the subject. ‘It was a fun method of facilitation and I’m going to draw inspiration from it,’ one participant said at the end. ‘It was interesting to note that smart technologies can be important for the control of energy use,’ said a student, Mathieu Ghanipour.

• More photos of the event
• Follow our activities to build trust in business