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 the involvement of partners across different levels and sectors. It is a strategy that is designed for all partners to strengthen engagement in water security and is 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, including 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.