Proceedings of the 43rd WEDC International Conference

Towards indicators for monitoring climate-resilient WASH services

Climate change is the defining challenge of the 21st century. It will increasingly constrain andchallenge water and sanitation services, resulting in increased public health risk. At the same time, the provision of safe, sufficient and reliable water and sanitation services is central to building the climate resilience of societies, making increased investment in service resilience a global priority.

In 2023, the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (JMP) and the UN Water Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water (GLAAS) launched the “Monitoring Climate Resilient WASH (MCRW)” project. The project aims to identify indicators for monitoring ‘climate resilient WASH’ at the global level, to support progressive integration of information on climate resilience into national and global frameworks for monitoring WASH.

As part of the project, a consortium of research partners (the University of Leeds, University of Technology Sydney, University of Bristol and Oxford University) has been engaged, supported by a technical working group with geographic and experiential diversity, to review existing definitions, indicators, tools, and data on climate resilience of WASH services.

Throughout 2024 the teams have been assessing the quality of evidence for links between key attributes of WASH and climate resilience, and reviewing how climate resilience is measured in other adjacent sectors. Systematic reviews are being conducted of emerging means of measuring and monitoring climate resilience in drinking water, sanitation and hygiene. A result of these reviews will be the development of a long list of proposed indicators for climate-resilient WASH services, organized into key domains of resilience.

This session will summarize the process followed to develop and structure the long list, and present progress towards developing the long list of proposed indicators for discussion and feedback. In 2025, the teams will run a global consultation to narrow down towards a list of prioritized indicators of climate- resilient WASH which could be used at global and national level.