Regional Engagement Strategy for Water Security

The Project:

In the Pacific, the Pacific Resilience Partnership (PRP) recognizes the importance of strengthening engagement and cooperation in water security as a key determinant of resilience through the establishment of a Pacific Resilience Water Security Technical Working Group (WSTWG) to facilitate multi-sectoral collaboration and engagement. A key objective of the WSTWG is to drive the development of a Water Security Engagement Strategy. The goal of the Water Security Engagement Strategy (WSES) is to increase regional engagement and actions on water security as a critical component of resilience because addressing the challenge for water security engagement necessitates collective action across all levels of government and sectors.

Project Purpose:

The Water Security Engagement Strategy is a six-year plan designed to strengthen engagement in water security as a key determinant of resilience. The scope of water security engagement is focused on enhancing sectoral engagement, collaboration, coordination, synergies, advocacy, communication, good practices, and partnerships essential to sustaining water security engagement across all levels. This is essential in addressing the persisting low levels of engagement in water security as a key determinant of resilience that has contributed to thousands of Pacific Island communities living without access to clean safe water, sanitation, and hygiene services.

The strategy is designed to encourage and increase the involvement of partners & actors across different levels and sectors. It is a strategy that is designed for all partners to strengthen and increase engagement, cooperation, and action on water security as a critical component of resilience by increasing multi-stakeholder engagement, with the strategy being a key outcome of the work of the Pacific Resilience Partnership Water Security Technical Working Group (PRP WSTWG).

Project Development:

The strategy was formulated through a scoping study comprising 40 multi-sectoral consultations across a diverse range of stakeholders from local, regional, national and global scales across various sectors, who cooperated with the shared goal of achieving water security for the region.  The consultations included the PRP WSTWG, government representatives, non-governmental organisations, industry experts, and development partners.

Consultations were guided by a plan to guide the objectives, methods & interview questions, stakeholder selection process, and data collection and analysis. This was augmented with a desktop study to gauge levels of engagement within existing regional and national frameworks to identify how water security is integrated into the climate resilient and disaster space and identify opportunities for engagement from existing and emerging initiatives. The strategy is to be used with the Water Security Engagement Action Plan which provides a list of actions partners may commit to fund towards strengthening engagement in water security as a key element of resilience.

Background

Small Islands States and territories in the Pacific are home to 12,770,000 people scattered across 180 million square kilometres. The Pacific continues to endure some of the lowest levels of access to safe water and sanitation of any region in the world and remains disproportionately impacted by the water-related impacts of disasters and climate change – including floods and droughts.

Securing the water security of Pacific Island nations requires accelerating engagement in water security as a key determinant of resilience across all levels and sectors. Strengthening engagement in water security is critical because climate change impacts on freshwater sources are evident in all Pacific Island Countries. The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report highlights several climatic changes affecting the Pacific region: increase in warming temperatures in the West Pacific, hotter air temperatures across the region, and increase in relative sea level rise in the Western Tropical Pacific that exceeds the global average, ranging from 5 to 11 mm per year; additionally, the report notes more frequent extreme ENSO events, drier rainfall in the Central Pacific with more extreme seasonality with the Northwest Pacific observed with stronger storms. Tropical cyclones in the South Pacific will be less frequent but more intensified.

The impact of these climate variabilities on the water security of small island states in the Pacific has been devastating. Evidence shows that climate variables have magnified the impacts of climate risks on water sources, infrastructures, services, and security and will continue to increase uncertainty over time with a profound impact on water security, food security, economic security, and health security.

Water insecurity is prevalent across the Pacific with Pacific Island countries calling for better sectoral engagement, coordination, collaboration, and partnerships toward improving sustainable, climate-resilient water security outcomes for Pacific communities. In the face of extreme climatic events and unpredictability, it is critical to strengthen engagement in water security to develop clear climate-resilient pathways for water security as a key determinant of climate-resilient development.

The data from the 2000 – 2022 Joint Monitoring Program Report for the Pacific shows that by 2030, at the current rate of progress, universal access to basic drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene services in the Pacific islands will not be achieved. A 10x increase in current rates of progress is required to achieve the global SDG targets by 2030. The anticipated outcomes of strengthening engagement in water security are improved sector coordination, improved collaboration, synergies, sustaining capacity, and partnerships which are crucial to accelerating water security engagement given the requirement for a 10X increase towards the realisation of Sustainable Development Goal 6 and all SDGs.

Strengthening multi-sectoral engagement in water security as a key determinant of resilience is vital due to the complexity of water security governance arrangements, operations, and management at the national, sub-national, and community levels. The differential and proportionate impacts of water security on women, remote rural communities, vulnerable populations with low climate resilience, and lack of access to financing make it even more critical to strengthen engagement with sectors responsible for for Gender Equality, Disability, and Social Inclusion (GEDSI). The interconnectedness of water security to the productive sectors such as tourism, agriculture and food security, the health sector, energy, the environment, climate-resilient development, and rural livelihoods makes it important for clear, engagement pathways at all levels.

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