Insights

Water for Women Fund (the Fund) was a DFAT-funded GEDSI WASH program implemented over an eight-year period from 2017 to 2025. It worked across 16 countries in South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific region and delivered projects through a mix of international, Australian and national Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and Research Organisations (ROs).

In its final two years, the Fund shifted its strategic direction to focus on climate change adaptation - to support the WASH projects within the Fund to transition to climate-resilient WASH. The intent for this phase of the program (referred to as the extension phase) was for the primary focus of the program to be directed at supporting this adaptation effort and, by extension, for the whole investment to be counted as climate change adaptation finance.

This strategic shift was a big change for the program; and also a contentious one. Whilst it was clear the WASH sector needed to do a lot more to adapt to climate change, there were doubts that the magnitude of this shift was optimal or feasible given the time available.

So how did it play out?

Here are two key insights from the Fund experience; and what we (the FC) think this means for future climate resilient WASH programming.

INSIGHT #1

As the extension phase approached its midway point, it started to become apparent that the areas where CSO projects were allocating most of their effort was not on climate-specific activities – i.e. not on activities which were targeting climate change risk as the principal 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 effort was indeed being allocated to a mix of different types of adaptation activities – 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 activities was most evident in the governance systems component of the program and included such things as strengthening institutional arrangements to formulate sub-national level 5-year 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 WASH services component of the programs and included, for example, modifying the design of latrine 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 weak 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 Fund 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 the Fund 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.

Insight#1 summary: Development gaps remain; and these gaps strongly influence what types of WASH-related adaptation can and should be prioritised at this point in the transition.

INSIGHT #2

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 governance reform 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 were not yet properly evaluated and refined to address some of the important issues that were emerging. These issues included such things as a lack of clarity and decision-support tools on when it is worthwhile to allocate scarce resources to make a given WASH service more climate resilient and when it is not (e.g. when the additional costs of adaptation are high, and when infrastructure is short-lived).

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 achieve the type of system changes that are needed to provide for efficient and effective inclusive, climate resilient WASH service delivery.

Insight#2 summary: Risk-informed governance reforms are fundamental for transitioning to climate resilient WASH development, however changes in these areas require time to get right and ensure they guide efficient allocation of resources.

WHAT WE THINK THIS MEANS FOR FUTURE CLIMATE RESILIENT WASH PROGRAMMING

As 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 the Fund, we think, 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 programming ‘directions’.

Direction #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 though 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 programs. 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: And what it further means is that financing mechanisms 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’). This will require that climate finance is ‘pooled’ and integrated with other sources of (official) development assistance.

Direction #2: Always include risk-informed governance reforms as a key part of climate resilient WASH programs, and provide funding support over the longer time horizon that is 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 recognizes 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: Financing for WASH governance reforms are provided over a longer time horizon (in the order of 9 years). This is what is needed to generate meaningful governance types of change. 2 years is not enough and can have perverse effects.