Water for Women - Vanuatu

Advancing climate-resilient WASH for all in Vanuatu

From 2023 to 2024 Water for Women partnered with World Vision to deliver climate-resilient inclusive WASH services to reach 3,618* people living in Sanma and Torba Provinces of Vanuatu. This project was an extension of Laetem Dak Kona (2018 to 2022). World Vision’s Water for Women project finished delivery in December 2024.

Partner: World Vision

Locations: Sanma and Torba Provinces, Vanuatu

Focus areas: Community-led climate action for inclusive WASH, behaviour change campaign (BCC) for safe drinking water, systems strengthening and capacity-building

During the Extension Phase, the Inclusive Climate-Resilient WASH in Vanuatu (ICR-WASH) project drove meaningful changes bridging behaviour change and community-led action in 21 communities of Sanma and Torba. The ICR-WEASH project supported communities to create context-specific WASH solutions, increasing the climate resilience of WASH services and systems in the face of changing weather patterns.

Building on partnerships established during the Phase 1 project (2018-22), the ICR-WASH project saw increased engagement with national and subnational government partners at the Department of Water Resources (DoWR) and with Health Officers in Torba and Sanma. During the Extension Phase, collaboration with provincial counterparts supported a meaningful shift in how the national DoWR engaged with community and rights holder organisations (RHOs) to connect policy with people.

In total, some 8,361 people were reached over the seven years of World Vision’s project. During the final two-year Extension Phase, this included 3,618* gaining improved access to climate-resilient inclusive WASH. 

An additional 72,200 people indirectly benefitted.

Strengthened systems and capacities to sustain inclusive WASH

Early in the Extension Phase, the World Vision Vanuatu ICR-WASH team completed a behaviour change 8-week course delivered by Water for Women research partner, the International WaterCentre (IWC). This coursework laid a strong foundation for the ICR-WASH project team to support behaviour change initiatives in communities for lasting impact, creating shared understanding of best practice techniques that were woven into project implementation.

Further, the IWC course supported the ICR-WASH team to deliver facilitated learning with communities in Sanma and Torba that empowered communities to drive WASH problem identification and analysis, and develop action plans to improve access to, and use of WASH systems before and after extreme weather events. As part of this planning, communities and local institutions demonstrated improved gender equality and social inclusion in climate-resilient WASH planning and service delivery.

The ICR-WASH project also fostered adaptive management among WASH actors in response to new learning and evidence presented by the propjet team on climate-resilient inclusive WASH. Representatives from Sista, a rights holder organisation (RHO) and ICR-WASH project partner, shared how collaborating with the ICR-WASH project had raised their capacity to advocate for inclusive WASH policies that address gender equality, while Red Cross applied practical learnings from ICR-WASH on rainwater tank maintenance to their work in Sanma Province.

While World Vision had maintained a strong partnership with DoWR at the provincial level for many years, leveraging this to build connections with the national DoWR team enabled the project to also connect RHOs to the department, which supported both to better socialise and connect policy and people. World Vision acted as a convening agency to bring together partners from different sectors in a strength-based approach.

By connecting the DoWR with civil society organisations like Sista, new avenues for partnerships were also formed through the support of the ICR-WASH project. World Vision Vanuatu and Sista worked with national DoWR officers to develop innovative communication strategies, utilising targeted messaging across various media platforms, interactive workshops, and community-driven campaigns for diverse audiences in rural and urban areas. This included the use of new techniques previously not utilised by DoWR. This collaboration brought together the ICR-WASH project and the Vanuatu governments’ key messaging and thought leadership with Sista’s expertise in community outreach and community engagement. The DoWR has since requested permission to use these resources on their own platforms in 2025, seeing value in having and building a library of new and innovative campaign material for future use.

The collaboration between the national DoWR, Sista and ICR-WASH team demonstrated the important role that RHOs have in galvanizing support and action at the community level, as well as in curating messaging to advocate to national and international partners on WASH needs. Sista also reported that the partnership had supported capacity-building within their team to continue this important work beyond ICR-WASH.

“This partnership, this project, has really helped me grow and step more into my leadership role. So, I think that has, I feel like that has really helped and boosted my confidence… not just in this partnership, but in the organization as well. I feel like I am more confident.”

Sista representative, Port Vila

The ICR-WASH project also delivered a range of training in Sanma and Torba, including for Water Management Committees and Community Disaster and Climate Change Committees, which equipped them with knowledge and strengthened capacities to undertake community mapping of climate risk hazards, to develop and implement climate-resilient inclusive WASH adaptation plans, to effectively use revised Drinking Water Safety and Security Plans and Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation to address risks and vulnerabilities to existing infrastructure, and to upgrade water systems and latrines. Some 1,402 individuals participated in these trainings, including RHO partners from Sista, VPride, Wan Smalbag Rainbow Theatre, and Vanuatu Society for People with a Disability, resulting in widespread and lasting benefit to communities.

World Vision Vanuatu team members demonstrate the “curb effect” model, based on the premise that designs catering for the needs of the most vulnerable bring benefit to everyone (World Vision Vanuatu / Brigitte Olul)

View more photo updates from our work in Vanuatu

Embedding equity in climate-resilient WASH planning and delivery

During the Extension Phase, the ICR-WASH project advocated for the inclusion of at-risk groups in climate resilience planning, investment and delivery. ‘At-risk groups’ include women, children, people of diverse sexual orientation, gender identity, expression and sex characteristics (SOGIESC), and people with disabilities. Evidence from the independent end of Fund evaluation showed that the ICR-WASH project made a measurable impact on the access to and use of climate-resilient WASH services by at-risk groups, towards fostering connections between RHOs and national and subnational WASH systems.

Communities and local institutions have improved gender equality and social inclusion in climate-resilient WASH planning and service delivery. Evidence from the end of Fund evaluation showed that the ICR-WASH project made a particularly strong impact on women’s participation in decision-making. All communities felt that women participated in decision-making related to climate change and WASH, and a majority felt that this decision-making had increased as a result of the project.

The ICR-WASH project also positively impacted people with disabilities’ participation in decision-making, building on successes from Phase 1 Laetem Dak Kona project programming. All communities felt that people with disabilities participated in decision-making related to climate change and WASH, and half (4 of 8) felt that this decision-making had increased as a result of the ICR-WASH project.

 “The main change has been the realisation of the importance of WASH and management of WASH. People now understand that good sanitation reduces illness. They are glad because of these changes. When we do not have proper toilets, we feel unsafe, and the smell is disturbing but now with the introduction of WASH systems, everyone is able to live happily. It really changes the livelihood of the communities.”

Area Council Representative, Motalava, Torba

Behaviour change for improved water safety and security

During the Extension Phase, the ICR-WASH project piloted a BCC program with households for improved behaviours to ensure rainwater harvesting delivered safe and secure drinking water supplies during and beyond the life of the project.

Rainwater provides one of the main drinking water supplies for households in rural Pacific communities. Research conducted by IWC showed that over 80% of surveyed villages reported their water tanks becoming empty or very low in the dry season, and over 70% of tanks tested on some islands had presence of bacterial indicators (poor water quality).

Through the ICR-WASH project, World Vision Vanuatu established a behaviour change intervention for rural community households, which was designed to encourage and foster improved maintenance, operation, and management behaviours that ensure the safe and secure capture, handling, storage, and use of rainwater for drinking purposes across the entire service chain – “From roof to mouth.”  

Learn more: Rainwater security behaviour change intervention in rural Vanuatu 

Lessons learnt

The ICR-WASH project team and partners shared the following overarching learnings.

It is important to first establish communities’ understanding of climate change, its impacts on their access to water, sanitation and hygiene resources, and facilitate local solutions that can be addressed with support from project staff, DoWR technical guidance and support, and provincial authorities.

Behaviour change requires time to complete a thorough baseline and build the three cornerstones required for behaviour change - knowledge, facilities and intention, in addition to improvements to WASH infrastructure in all  target communities. In the ICR-WASH project, only target communities identified as the most vulnerable received both the behaviour change training and infrastructure support for repairs and larger scale climate-resilient WASH improvements. In very remote islands, such as Gaua and Mota Lava in Torba province, coordination of materials for improvements presents additional challenges.

Looking ahead

Using formative research conducted in partnership with IWC, World Vision documented challenges that communities in Vanuatu face in behaviour change and began to define what climate-resilient WASH programming may look like in the future. World Vision aims to leverage this learning to deepen meaningful relationships with existing partners such as the DoWR and Sista, and new partners and government departments such as the Department of Energy, and to engage with them in the early stages of future project designs.

World Vision plans to create tools that allow for community-driven problem analysis, action planning and infrastructure development in the early stages of projects, to allow more time to be dedicated to behaviour change initiatives after appropriate infrastructure has been installed. As disaster responses have become more frequent in Vanuatu, World Vision will also include contingencies within project delivery timeframes that recognise this reality.

With greater understanding of the government processes and timeframes for the development and approval of national campaigns, World Vision will plan for earlier engagement with the DoWR and additional time in the development of messaging and engagement with key stakeholders such as government departments and RHOs on national advocacy campaigns. In addition to this, considering the limited capacity of many small RHOs and due diligence requirements, World Vision will provide additional governance support to promote their meaningful participation and capacity building.

Feature photo: A child and village health worker stand and observe a tree that was previously surrounded by dry land before decades of coastal erosion and sea-level rise resulted in a rapidly shifting coastline and encroaching coral reef in Vatop, Vanua Lava, Torba Province. (World Vision Vanuatu)

*Phase 1 beneficiaries were calculated from those who achieved WASH access. Extension Phase beneficiaries were calculated from those who achieved WASH access as well as climate change outcomes. Totals were determined based on outcomes reported by individual projects. See Our Impact.