Preparing to adapt: The untold story of water in climate change adaptation processes

In 2018, through the Talanoa Dialogue, Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change took stock of collective efforts towards the goals of the Paris Agreement to inform the preparation of the next round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in 2020. This first stocktaking of the NDCs provided a tremendous opportunity for countries to assess what they can do – better, faster, with broader ownership, and longer-lasting impact – to build climate resilience. The Global Water Partnership (GWP) seeks to inform this process, as countries shape their ambitions on improving effectiveness of NDC delivery and scaling up NDC action, by presenting emerging insights from an analysis of water-specific commitments in the NDCs of 80 countries.

This document aims to understand country priorities in terms of water-related adaptation – and compare these priorities with insights and advice from the United Nations 2018 progress report on implementing the Sustainable Development Goal on Water (SDG 6). The authors also analyse alignments with national development planning processes and coordination across governments. While more analysis is needed to better understand the drivers behind individual countries’ decisions, the emerging insights presented in the report indicate that there are significant benefits in ‘marrying’ climate change coordination with good practice established for water management in terms of inclusion and multi-stakeholder consultation. The authors also point to the urgent need – for countries and their development partners – to bring together institutional strengthening and water governance with more detailed design for projects and programmes and a major drive towards infrastructure investment in the years to come.