Mainstreaming water resilience in Asia and the Pacific: guidance note

This guidance note provides specific actions and tools for scaling up and mainstreaming water resilience in Asia and the Pacific through ADB’s operations. Asia and the Pacific is the most disaster-prone region in the world and water is the primary medium through which the impacts of climate change are felt. Resilient water management is central to achieving climate adaptation, managing and better preparing for natural and public health threats, and addressing water scarcity issues. The guidance note is based on six pillars: (i) demand for resilient water investments; (ii) a community approach; (iii) strengthened staff capacity; (iv) knowledge, innovation, and partnerships; (v) finance for water resilience; and (vi) digitalization.

This guidance note defines full resilience in the water sector as the capacity of an investment, system, community, or policy to respond to realized or potential climate change or other hazards. Building resilience, broadly and within the water sector, will require shifting perspective, from neutralizing risks in business-as-usual to enabling transformational change. The guidance note itself is resilient: it is flexible, acknowledging it will require periodic evolution as new knowledge and experience become available and robust, being able to respond to a wide range of needs.