A role-play was the yearly highlight of a Masters course that ran for a good 15 years. Imagine the following scene: “We are in the General Assembly meeting of a Mexican Water Users Association. The president is presenting their regular accounts to water user representatives. It becomes clear that there is a back-log in the maintenance program, since several machines broke down and could not clean the irrigation canals. A delegate has heard rumors that the machines were illegally deployed outside the irrigation system. Why? If things end well, the meeting might be closed with a nice lunch for which the president invites his supporters”.

By playing out this real-life scene, power and accountability problems become visible for students. The greatest joy is to see experienced professionals, who usually claim they cannot act, competently perform in such a role-play, based on their own experience. Dutch students can learn so much from more experienced international colleagues, who (un-)knowingly share their experience in this manner. Students valued it as a fun and real-life learning experience.