Meet the Expert | Paul Rabé
Paul Rabé is the academic coordinator of the cities cluster at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) in Leiden. One of the initiatives that he works on is the River Cities Network. Paul is the co-coordinator of the network, together with Satya Patchineelam, who works with riverine communities on the Xingu River in the Brazilian Amazon region. The River Cities Network was established in December 2022 and presently has more than 40 teams on all continents. The teams combine experts from different disciplines and work together to tackle present-day global challenges concerning rivers, streams and creeks in cities and peri-urban (partly urban) areas.
At the time of the interview, Paul Rabé had just returned from Nairobi, Kenya. He was there because the River Cities Network is helping a local team to produce a river zone plan for the government in Mukuru, an informal settlement of about 300.000 people located along the Ngong River. The team is trying to give new life to the river zone, in collaboration with the community and civil society partners. The team is made up of people from a mix of different disciplines, such as anthropologists, people specialised in nature-based solutions, planners, engineers, and even artists. Paul emphasises that a multi-disciplinary approach is key in studying and dealing with rivers.
Paul finds that we are often pressured in school to become experts and specialists, which is important for the job market. Global challenges, however, are complex and cannot be solved by one field of study alone. In order to tackle these challenges, you need a combination of different skills, even though it is not always easy for people from different disciplines to collaborate. For example, in his program on Urban Environment, Sustainability and Climate Change at IHS at the Erasmus University Rotterdam - his other place of work, Paul works together with a colleague from the so-called ‘hard’ sciences (disciplines that focus on the physical and natural world). To build knowledge on how to achieve climate neutral cities, it is important that the study program integrates both climate science and the social sciences, even though these fields have completely different languages and different data requirements.
Paul Rabé started out in political science. He spent several years working at the World Bank in Washington, among others on municipal development projects, and then moved to Southeast Asia where he worked as advisor to governments and donor agencies on urban land topics, before he ended up at Leiden and Erasmus Universities. Paul likes teaching, because it offers him the human aspect that was missing in his job as a consultant. In his work at IIAS and IHS, he is able to engage in teaching, research and advisory work, a combination that works well for him. He enjoys sharing information, helping others, and pursuing new horizons. Paul enjoys the policy-oriented and diverse nature of his work: he talks to governments, goes into communities, and works with a lot of different people from different places.
Paul’s biggest passion is helping to save the world’s rivers. He thinks they are beautiful phenomena in nature, but also have an important social aspect, because a lot of our human cultural and social life takes place around them. Sadly, rivers all around the world are suffering. Rivers in the Netherlands, for example, are heavily impacted by agricultural production and fertilisers. The River Cities Network contributes to solving issues concerning rivers and river zones, which directly impact the health of our planet and societies. Paul likes to think of rivers as the arteries of the earth: they transport water from glaciers and mountains to the seas, absorbing all the world’s problems along the way. The River Cities Network aims to mobilize local partners from all over the world to help clean these arteries and build a healthier, more sustainable planet and society.
Interview by LeidenGlobal Intern Ilse Zwart
May 2025
Have a look at our other experts on the Expert page