Systems leadership essay

The world knows how to deliver essential public services to everyone. What unlocks it is political will, the right systems, and leaders who understand that water and sanitation are not technical problems – they are governance ones. Patrick Moriarty has spent twenty-five years making that case, and building the intellectual tools to back it up. 

His central contribution has been to shift how the sector thinks: from infrastructure to systems, from projects to services, from delivery to sustainability. The concepts of systems thinking, systems strengthening and systems leadership – now embedded in the vocabulary of the field – were developed in significant part through his work at IRC and Riva over more than two decades. 

That intellectual agenda has always been matched by political engagement. Through his work in Riva and as chair of Sanitation and Water for All, he helped build the Presidential Compact model – head-of-state commitments to water and sanitation as a national priority – into a movement in more than ten countries. A civil engineer by training with a PhD in Water Resource Management, he brings technical grounding to debates that are fundamentally about politics and human behaviour. He is Irish and lives between Bristol and The Hague. 

A few highlights 

• Secretary General of the Riva Network – leading the transformation of IRC from a Dutch NGO into a federated global network of nationally-led organisations, a decade in the making 
• Architect of the Presidential Compacts movement – head-of-state commitments to water and sanitation as a national priority, now active in more than ten countries across Africa and Asia 
• Co-founder of the One For All alliance – a unique partnership with Water for People built around a shared strategy, shared results framework (Destination 2030), and a jointly registered UK legal entity; one of the few genuine peer alliances in international development 
• Co-founder of the Agenda for Change – a network of organisations committed to driving systems change in water and sanitation globally 
• Pioneer of the systems strengthening agenda in water and sanitation – co-developing the life-cycle costing approach to sustainable services, and convening the All Systems Connect Symposium to connect water, health, climate and social justice 
• Working languages: English and French