The World Economic Forum’s Water Initiative first began in 2003, thanks to a farsighted collaboration with Alcan and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. The focus was on creating multistakeholder networks to facilitate the development of public-private water projects that help meet the needs for all stakeholders. Much effort was spent in the initial stage investigating the market for – and raising awareness about – the potential for innovative public-private partnerships in water. The interesting challenge now lies in how to build upon the advances that have been made to drive fundamental and lasting change in our approach to innovate government-industry water project design.