Growing systems leadership 2026

Display title
Growing systems leadership
Listing introduction
The nations that deliver essential public services to everyone – safe water and sanitation, health, education and beyond – share a common foundation: systems that work.
Page section
content

Political commitment, capable institutions, predictable finance, effective regulation, skilled providers – all working together, over time. Building and sustaining that architecture requires systems leadership. That’s why today, it’s our driving force

We’ve spent more than fifty years learning how to strengthen systems, and grow systems leaders: people who see beyond the boundaries of their own organisation or mandate. Who work across sectors. Who build coalitions. And find the leverage points where a small shift can trigger a cascade. From presidential compacts to village water committees, from national policy to ministerial reform, we’ve developed and worked with systems leaders in government and in service providers, in communities and in financial institutions. We believe that systems leadership is the only approach equal to the scale of the challenges we face today.

 

 

content

Resources

The most direct entry point to Riva's thinking on systems leadership is our interactive essay on systems leadership [systemsleadershipessay.com] – an accessible, evidence-grounded account of how the concept evolved, what it means in practice, and how it applies across the public service landscape. You can find the intellectual foundations of moving from pumps and pipes to systems in our peer-reviewed Trends in Rural Water Supply: Towards a Service Delivery Approach [link tbc]. For the nine building blocks that together determine whether a WASH system can deliver safe services sustainably, read Building Strong WASH Systems for the SDGs [link tbc]. For a practitioner's account of how systems leadership is built in the field – including more than fifteen years of evidence from Ghana and Uganda – see How to Use Learning Alliances to Achieve Systems Change at Scale [link tbc-].

If you or your colleagues would like structured learning to transform your work, the WASH Systems Academy [link tbc] has a new course launching in July 20266 - Driving Systems Change for Universal Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Services. The Academy also offers fifteen other free, interactive courses to help you with sustainable systems, finance, district planning, climate resilience, advocacy, and more.