William J. Cosgrove

William J. Cosgrove is President of Ecoconsult Inc. and coauthor of World Water Vision: Making Water Everybody’s Business.
 
Ecoconsult offers services related to sustainable water resources management, with linkages between water and other global systems (including impacts of climate variability and climate change). It focuses on multi-disciplinary project management, strategic analysis and development planning, policy analysis, policy, and institutional reform, project financing, socioeconomic and environmental impact studies, post evaluation of programs and projects, development of indicators and monitoring systems, and visioning and scenario development.
 
Bill has years of experience in Canada and in international institutions. He is presently serving as content coordinator for the 3rd World Water Development Report. From 2005 to 2008 he was President of the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement in Québec.
 
Up to 1972, his experience was in consulting engineering firms in Montreal, Quebec, in strategic planning, institution building, and sustainable development in the water and power sectors. He then joined the World Bank, initially as Water Resources Specialist in the North Africa/Middle East Region. After a varied career leading to the position of Vice-President, he resigned from the World Bank in 1989 to enter Quebec politics. He is past-president of the World Water Council and served as chairman of the International Steering Committee of the Dialogue on Water and Climate.
 
Bill also compiled the results of the first phase of the UNESCO-Green Cross International Programme Potential for Conflict to Cooperation Potential (PCCP) in Water Security and Peace: A Synthesis of Studies Prepared under the PCCP-Water for Peace Process.