What Does Climate-Resilient Inclusive WASH Look Like?
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Insights from Water for Women's learning agenda
Water for Women is an implementation and research fund that is uniquely placed to contribute to local, regional and global understanding of best practice in climate-resilient, inclusive water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) development.
Under Water for Women’s collaborative Learning Agenda 2023–24, drawing on learnings from the implementation of climate-resilient and inclusive WASH projects and research programs in the Asia–Pacific region over the last seven years, Water for Women partners sought to explore a fundamental learning question:
What does climate-resilient inclusive WASH development look like?
In exploring the learning question, partners undertook dedicated learning initiatives to improve their understanding of how WASH programs consider climate risk and resilience, how WASH governance systems integrate these considerations, and the importance of gender equality, disability and social inclusion (GEDSI) to climate-resilient WASH. Water for Women acknowledges the inherent complexity and scale of global WASH needs and multi-faceted inclusion and climate resilience aspects. No one-size-fits-all approach exists, but the collective experience of our partners offers guidance to achieving climate-resilient inclusive WASH for all.
Over the extension phase of Water for Women, these learning groups have been hard at work exploring this question and related sub-questions together:
What does climate risk and resilience mean for WASH programming?
Integrating climate risk and resilience into WASH governance systems
How and why is gender, disability and social inclusion critical to climate-resilient WASH?
Over the coming months, we will be sharing our learning through three dedicated learning briefs. However, as our final year of implementation comes to and end, we have drawn together key insights from all three learning briefs to share with partners and the wider WASH and development sectors to give you a taste of what to expect in 2025.
What Does Climate-Resilient Inclusive WASH Look Like? Insights from Water for Women
Water for Women is an implementation and research fund that is uniquely placed to contribute to local, regional and global understanding of best practice in climate-resilient, inclusive water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) development. Under our collaborative Learning Agenda 2023-24, drawing on learnings from the implementation of climate-resilient and inclusive WASH projects and research programs in the Asia–Pacific region, we have sought to explore this fundamental learning question.
Launching in 2025
Integrating Risk and Resilience for Climate-Resilient WASH Programming
- Global efforts continue, but definitions of climate risk and resilience and the application of the concepts are diverse and still evolving, including for the WASH sector.
- ‘Climate risk’ is commonly understood as the potential for an adverse outcome influenced by the climate or a climate change event.
- Social and environmental changes can increase or reduce climate risks.
- ‘Climate resilience’ is like ‘sustainability’ in lacking strong consensus on how to action definitions but with documented and replicable good practices that contribute to a resilient and sustainable future.
- Climate change creates complexity and uncertainty that governments, communities and practitioners need to be able to navigate to make decisions.
Launching in 2025. Subscribe to ensure you don't miss it!
Strengthening Governance for Climate-Resilient WASH Systems
- WASH sector stakeholders are increasing efforts to strengthen the climate resilience of WASH development globally.
- Integrating climate risk and resilience into WASH governance systems is central to these efforts, but is a new reform area in most settings.
- Many frameworks for climate risk and resilience and WASH governance exist, but most relate to governance functions; few consider climate risk and resilience as part of how governance should be performed.
- Promising practices have emerged from Water for Women's experience delivering climate-resilient inclusive WASH projects in the Asia-Pacific region; they can guide
- integration of climate risk and resilience into inclusive WASH governance systems.
Launching in 2025. Subscribe to ensure you don't miss it!
The Criticality of GEDSI for Climate-Resilient WASH
- Transformative GEDSI considers the inherent linkages between climate change, WASH, resilience, equity and inclusion – particularly for marginalised populations who experience intersectional disadvantages.
- The most marginalised in communities are at the frontline of climate change hazards, uncertainty and impacts – they must be part of decision-making for context-appropriate and sustainable climate resilience solutions.
- Barriers to their participation and access (social, habitat, institutional, financial and technical) are compounded by climate change impacts on WASH services.
- Inclusive and accessible WASH approaches increase coping mechanisms and adaptive capacities, providing a multiplier effect that benefits everybody and supports positive outcomes beyond WASH.
- Building climate risk-informed and inclusive approaches into WASH systems and services are key enablers for effective community and climate resilience outcomes.
Launching in 2025. Subscribe to ensure you don't miss it!
Resilientogether
How Inclusive WASH Strengthens Climate Resilience
This report is the culmination of a two-year-long collaborative learning process under Water for Women’s extension phase learning agenda, drawing on diverse partner experiences over seven years of delivering inclusive WASH projects and research across the Asia Pacific region. We sought to answer the question: How does inclusive WASH contribute to climate resilience?
Launching in 2025. Subscribe to ensure you don't miss it!
Our Learning Agenda is the dynamic and interactive framework that links Fund partners and allows them to share and learn from one another. It promotes a shared interest in collaborative knowledge development and learning on climate-resilient, sustainable and inclusive WASH between all partners.
Water for Women is unique in its role as both an implementation and research Fund that contributes to regional and global understanding of best practice in climate-resilient inclusive development.
Drawing on evidence-based approaches in projects across Asia and the Pacific and research initiatives that address knowledge and evidence gaps, Water for Women provides guidance and practical examples of climate-resilient inclusive development for WASH and related sectors. This in turn contributes to national and global development goals, including Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG5) – Gender equality, Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6) - Water and sanitation for all, and resilience building targets such as those of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SDRR) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
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