2 February 2014: The Global Water Partnership (GWP) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have announced a strategic partnership to cooperate on work related to water and climate resilience. A central goal of the partnership is to provide practical guidance to UNICEF country offices working on its Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programme.

The partnership will also enable GWP to leverage UNICEF’s expertise in policy and service delivery at the global, regional, and country levels. Alex Simalabwi, Coordinator of GWP’s Global Water, Climate and Development Programme (WACDEP), noted that “GWP has traditionally focused on water resources management and this collaboration with UNICEF will help to close the loop of the water resources cycle.”

The initial partnership will last for six months, with the potential for extension. During the initial period, the collaboration will focus on four outputs: a Strategic Framework for WASH and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA), based on GWP strategic framework for water security and climate resilient development; targeted, in-depth technical briefs and guidance notes; preliminary development of interactive online toolkit to facilitate the implementation of the WASH-CCA framework; and an initial capacity training module for the framework.

UNICEF’s WASH and CCA efforts are supported by the British Development for International Development (DFID), the Dutch Directorate General for International Cooperation (DGIS), and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), with a focus on climate resilience in nine countries: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Madagascar, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger, Pakistan, South Sudan and Yemen.

GWP was founded in 1996 by the World Bank, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) to foster integrated water resource management (IWRM). [GWP Press Release] [UNICEF WASH Programme Website] [Publication: GWP’s Strategic Framework for Water Security and Climate Resilient Development]