Ruth Richardson

Secretary-General, INLW; Policy-Officer and contract manager, Dutch Water Authority Rijnland in The Netherlands

Ruth was born in Aruba, Oranjestad (Dutch Caribbean) on September the 7th, 1972. She lives now for about 33 years in The Netherlands. She was appointed as Secretary General this year at INLW (International Network of Liberal Women. She is NGO delegate at the UN’s (NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations ) and an Accredited Observer status for the KCI and Adaptation Committee (UNFCCC).

She works as a Policy-support officer and contract manager on waste water treatment plants and climate adaptation at the Dutch Water Authority Rijnland in Leiden The Netherlands. In addition to my work, I have followed various studies and courses on Water management and Information management.

Ruth attended this year the UN 2023 Water Conference where she gave several presentations at several side events on topics such as “Ethics in Big Data and Water management” and Introduce affirmative action programmes for educating and training Women, young women, girls and boys in technical careers such as Data Engineering and promoting women and young women in water and sanitation management towards water leadership. And she held her own side event on behalf of her network INLW and on behalf of the Dutch Water Authority on “Reflections on Women, Water, Culture and Education Past, Present and Future”.
This Side Event elaborated on the following matters. On the one hand, women and young women leaders are needed at all levels of society, in water companies, water management, as water agencies and international and regional water institutions to reduce the democratic gender gap in water leadership. On the other hand, safe water and sanitation are so important to getting girls and boys into school and trained to become water leaders.