This is the Big Five, the companion series to the podcast Water Talks, with one-on-one interviews with some of the extraordinary speakers from the main episodes. 

This is a conversation with ‘Mister Water’ himself: Henk Ovink. 

He was influential in shaping planning and water policy in the Netherlands, but he really made his name as a member of the task force Obama created in response to Hurricane Sandy. For the past eight years, he has been the Netherlands’ special envoy for International Water Affairs. He worked for a long time to organize the first UN conference on water in almost 50 years, together with Tajikistan. This is a big moment for him: the conference was the high point of his time as Special Envoy, and it marks the end of his term.

You can hear him in episode 1 of Water Talks, ‘Too Close for Comfort’. This is the longer version of my interview with him during the New York Water Week and the UN Water conference in 2023.