Dive deeper on integrating climate-resilient inclusive WASH programming

Artists Merinda Walters blue piece called Interconnected waters

Learning from practice: lessons in strengthening climate-resilient WASH programming

This 'Dive deeper' series give readers a chance to learn more from Water for Women's experience and should be read in conjunction with our more detailed Impact Report.

The Water for Women (WfW) Fund has been the Australian Government’s flagship water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) program from 2018 to June 2025. It delivered socially inclusive WASH projects and research in 16 Asian and Pacific countries, investing AUD 159.9 million with its partner Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and research organisations (ROs). In its final two years, WfW shifted its strategic direction to focus on climate change adaptation - to support the WASH projects within the Fund to transition to inclusive, climate-resilient inclusive WASH. The intent for this phase of the program (referred to as the Extension Phase) was for the primary focus to be directed at supporting this adaptation effort and, by extension, for the whole investment to be counted as climate change adaptation finance.

An understanding of the impact of climate change on inclusive WASH commenced during Phase 1 through a number of projects and targeted initiatives, but this strategic shift was a significant change for the program. Whilst it is clear the WASH sector needs to do more to adapt to climate change, the magnitude of the shift was ambitious, and poses the question as to what was feasible within the WfW’s Extension Phase timeframe (i.e. 2 years).

So how did it play out over the final two years of Water for Women?

Here are two key insights from the Fund experience; and based on this perspective, the implications for future climate resilient WASH programming and the wider development sector.

Existing governance arrangements and capabilities influenced adaptation activities

As the Extension Phase approached its midway point, project reporting and monitoring visits began to indicate that areas where CSO projects were allocating their effort were climate related but not necessarily on climate-specific activities – i.e. not on activities which were targeting climate change risk as the ‘principal[1]’ focus and rationale.

To further understand this situation, the FC undertook a review exercise of the characteristics of the main activities actually being delivered by CSO projects; and to investigate the factors that were influencing the allocation of effort to these areas.

The review found that project efforts were indeed being allocated to a mix of different types of adaptation activities[2] – and not just activities that are principally focused on climate. These other types of adaptation activities were:

activities that address barriers or factors that affect both adaptive capacity as well as broader WASH and social development (i.e. ‘shared’). This type of activity was most evident in the WASH systems strengthening component of the program and included such things as strengthening institutional arrangements to formulate sub-national level 5-year climate resilient WASH plans , and increasing representation of women and marginalised groups in institutional arrangements responsible for making decisions on sub-national WASH plans.
traditional WASH activities that have been modified so they are resilient to changing climate hazard events and therefore more likely to be effective at achieving their WASH-related objective (i.e. ‘adapted’). This type of activity was most evident in the increasing WASH access and services component of the programs to be more resilient and included, for example, modifying the design of toilet systems to be raised-up and sealed.

The review further found two key factors were influencing the allocation of effort to these types of adaptation activities:

The first factor was that core WASH governance functions and climate risk-oriented functions are closely inter-dependent, and in many cases integrated. And because there are gaps and weaknesses in the core functions of WASH governance in most contexts, it was necessary for projects to build climate risk management capacities as part of broader reforms to strengthen WASH governance. If projects instead just focused their governance work on strengthening climate risk management capacities only, these efforts would be building on existing weak governance foundations and would ultimately not be successful in achieving their intended objectives.

The second factor was that investments in WASH services are increasingly being guided by risk-informed WASH plans. In the WfW experience, the activities that are prioritised within WASH plans that are risk-informed tend to emphasise ‘adapted’ type activities – which include adaptation as a component part of the activity, but the broader activity cannot generally be wholly counted as adaptation. In WfW’s experience, aligning investments with (risk-informed) WASH plans is clearly a good practice approach because it supports more coherent WASH services delivery and reinforces country ownership and sustainability within existing systems of operations.

Risk-informing WASH governance systems takes time

A key strategy implemented by all CSO projects was to integrate climate risk assessment capability into WASH governance systems. This, in theory, provides for all WASH investments to be systematically ‘risk-informed’ and in turn for climate change adaptation measures to be incorporated into the design of WASH services and interventions as appropriate. In this way, it is considered the key pathway for how the WASH sector can transition to climate-resilient WASH development.

At a strategic-level, lessons emerged on how climate risk assessment capacities are best integrated into WASH governance systems and thereby risk-inform WASH services. These include to:

(i) embed climate risk and resilience considerations into the WASH planning, budgetary, and implementation processes that are already in place,

(ii) build climate risk management capacities as part of broader reforms to strengthen WASH governance[1],

(iii) strengthen and adapt existing tools first and only create new ones where clearly needed,

(iv) separately consider women and marginalised groups within risk assessment elements and meaningfully involve representatives from these groups in the conduct of this risk assessment work, and

(v) utilise a combination of scientific and customary climate data to input to climate risk analyses.

At an operational level however, projects were mostly only just getting started on their climate-risk related governance strengthening journey. For the large majority of CSO projects, WASH service planning tools were (i) adapted/developed to consider climate risk, (ii) training provided, and (iii) applied to pilot project settings – which is a significant achievement in the time available.

Critically, however these tools still needed to be properly evaluated and refined to address some of the important issues that were emerging. These issues included such things as analytical and decision-support tools to help identify when it is worthwhile to allocate scarce resources to make a given WASH service more climate resilient and when it is not.

More investment over a longer period of time is required to ensure climate risk assessment tools and processes are fit-for-purpose and fit-for-context – and to achieve the type of system changes that are needed to provide for efficient and effective climate-resilient, inclusive WASH service delivery.

What does this mean for future climate-resilient WASH programming?

As the financial resources available for WASH continue to shrink and as progress towards SDG 6 tracks backwards in many key areas, how we program for climate resilient WASH becomes increasingly critical and consequential.

The insights from Water for Women’s experience provide critical learnings for how this can be done better – and to more effectively and efficiently support the transition to climate resilient WASH development.

These insights can be re-framed as two key areas of guidance for future programming:

1) Balanced and integrated programming, taking a broader climate resilient WASH development view

What this means is:

Framing: Climate change risk is considered as one of the issues and challenges affecting WASH development; amongst other issues. Climate risk and resilience is not necessarily the main or only framing through which (policy/project) needs are to be established. A more holistic view of climate resilient WASH development frames the design.
Activity(s): A mix of different types of adaptation responses are considered and potentially ‘on-the-table’ for inclusion in new climate resilient WASH programming. This includes ‘adapted’, ‘shared’, as well as ‘climate-specific’ types of activities – and not just ‘climate-specific’ activities, where the principal objective and rationale of the objective is related to addressing climate risks. A narrower focus on ‘climate-specific’ activities will not in-general align with the highest priority needs; will not integrate coherently with other interventions as part of a programmatic approach; and thus will not support an efficient and effective transition to climate resilient WASH development.
Financing: Financing mechanisms should support this broader framing of climate resilient WASH development and the type of activities that are eligible for funding (including ‘adapted’ and ‘shared’ adaptation activities as well as ‘climate specific’). In many cases, this will require that climate finance is ‘pooled’ and integrated with official development assistance.

2) Always include risk-informed governance strengthening as a key part of climate-resilient WASH programs, and provide funding support over a longer timeframe that is realistically needed to achieve these types of changes

What this means is:

Framing: A key ‘problem-space’ for all climate resilient WASH programs should relate to WASH governance. Weaknesses and gaps in climate risk management capacity should be part of this broader problem space, but not the only or necessarily the main part. This further recognises that risk-informed governance systems is a key pathway to achieve the transition to climate resilient WASH development.
Activity(s): Climate risk management capacities are included as a component of general reforms to strengthen WASH governance. Avoid standalone climate-specific system capacity building.
Financing: Governance systems change is hard work, and it takes time. Financing should reflect this and be provided over a longer investment timeline.

Definitions for different WASH adaptation activities

The following are three broad types, or ‘framings’, for WASH adaptation activities.

The first type – referred to here as ‘climate-specific’ – corresponds to activities that are specifically targeted at supporting the WASH sector to adapt to climate change as its principal focus (i.e. addressing WASH-related climate risks as the primary problem). More specifically, these activities address barriers identified as constraining the capacity of the sector and component stakeholders to manage WASH-related climate risks that it faces. In this way the activities serve to enable adaptation. This activity type is roughly in line with the ‘primary objective’ characterization as outlined in the 2024 DFAT Good Practice Note entitled Integrating climate change into Australia’s development assistance.
The second type - referred to here as ‘adapted’ – describes WASH activities that are adjusted or modified to account for climate risks to that intervention. That is, changes to typical WASH services interventions to help ensure they are still effective at achieving their intended WASH-related objectives despite the risks they face from (changing) climate hazards. This is broadly in line with the ‘mainstreamed’ characterization as outlined in the Good Practice Note entitled Integrating climate change into Australia’s development assistance.
The third adaptation type – referred to here as ‘shared’ – describes activities that target barriers that affect both adaptive capacity as well as broader WASH and social development (e.g. social norms around women’s role in household and community decision-making around WASH investments). That is, they target factors that are common across climate risk management and broader WASH and social development domains. In this way, activities serve to enable both (WASH related) adaptation and broader sectoral and social development; and thus generate multiple benefits. Further, WASH-related climate risks for these activities are, generally-speaking, one of the problems the intervention is addressing but are not necessarily the main or primary policy problem. This characterization is broadly in line with the ‘secondary objective’ characterization as outlined in the Good Practice Note entitled Integrating climate change into Australia’s development assistance.

[1] From the OECD DAC Rio Markers for Climate Handbook (2023) : An activity can be marked as principal when the objective (climate change mitigation or adaptation) is explicitly stated as fundamental in the design of, or the motivation for, the activity. Promoting the objective will thus be stated in the activity documentation as one of the principal reasons for undertaking it. In other words, the activity would not have been funded (or designed that way) but for that objective.

[2] Definitions of the terms used above are available at the end of this document.

[3] refer insight#1 above.

Author and biography: Aaron is an economics, governance and evaluation practitioner whos’ work is focused on the integration of climate change considerations into public policy systems in the Australia and Pacific contexts. Aaron excels in leading, and working as part of, multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder teams to better understand complex climate and development problems, and collaboratively formulate fit-for-context and evidence-based solutions.

Article acknowledgments: Lee Leong, Mia Cusack

Water for Women supported the Australian Government development assistance goal of improved health, gender equality and well-being in Asian and Pacific communities through climate-resilient and socially inclusive water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services. Commencing in 2018, Water for Women civil society organisation WASH projects and research across 16 Asia Pacific countries supported systems strengthening, the delivery of improved WASH services and infrastructure, increased gender equitable, disability and socially inclusive WASH access, and widespread knowledge and learning for lasting impact.

Phase 1 of Water for Women was delivered from December 2017 to December 2022 and exceeded the target of improved WASH access for 3 million direct beneficiaries, reaching 3,602,999 people. Between January 2023 and June 2025, Water for Women was funded for an extension phase with a strong learning focus to improve understanding of how to transition to climate-resilient inclusive WASH. The Extension Phase reached a further 798,816 direct beneficiaries with climate-resilient inclusive WASH services, taking the total number of direct beneficiaries to 4,401,815 for the seven-year implementation period (2018–24). A further 7,278,692 people benefitted indirectly from both phase.

Water for Women also worked in public and private spaces, including 1,106 schools, 576 healthcare facilities, and at the household (721,871) and community (11,122) level. The leadership of women and marginalised people increased across 1,285 WASH committees and private sector organisations, with 21,725 representatives taking up active leadership or technical roles. The Australian Government’s total investment in Water for Women was AUD159.9 million from 2017-25 (including program inception and finalisation).

The 'Dive deeper' series give readers a chance to learn more from Water for Women's experience and should be read in conjunction with our more detailed Impact Report.

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