GWC Collective Outcomes

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Introduction

The escalation of humanitarian crises has dramatically peaked in the past years, reaching 301 million people in need of humanitarian assistance and protection in 28 countries. More than 50% of them, 168 million people, will need life-saving water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) assistance this year due to complex and protracted conflict and displacement, climate-related disasters and shocks, and large-scale public health emergencies¹. Meanwhile, the humanitarian WASH sector's funding gap remains immense as only 35% of the funding has been received². The evolving nature of crises requires ‘joined-up’ action for collective outcomes by humanitarian, development, and peace actors, in alignment with the 2030 Agenda, to maximize gains that leave no one behind, reduce needs and vulnerabilities, and achieve sustainable development and sustained peace. 301 million 168 million 35% funding People in need of humanitarian assistance People in need of life-saving water, sanitation, and hygiene Percentage of funding received by WASH sector. The business-as-usual approach is not delivering the results needed and requires a new way of working.

This “New Way of Working”, as outlined by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), is a multi-layered and coordinated process for humanitarian, development and peacebuilding actors that promotes an effective framework for collaboration, optimizing the principles of partnership and harnessing the comparative advantage of a diverse range of actors, including local actors and authorities, and leads to concrete and measurable results. It can be achieved through joint context and risk analysis, complementary planning and programming, a recalibration of financing modalities and the empowerment of a local workforce on the ground. . Effective leadership and coordination of humanitarian actors play a central role in attaining collective outcomes. The United Nations’ coordination architecture that guides humanitarian action and development cooperation is the entry point for strengthening existing country-level processes and lays the foundation for system-wide change.

Currently, humanitarian action with complementary development and peacebuilding approaches for the WASH sector to enhance resilience are siloed. Gaps remain in cultivating partnerships and enhancing ways of working for humanitarian, development, and peace collaboration. The mandates and methodologies for joint analysis, data collection, strategic planning, geographic focus areas, and financing for WASH outcomes are misaligned. The capacity and resources to drive innovative and transformative WASH outcomes are divided. To address these challenges, all WASH partners and national coordination mechanisms play a key role as champions in this process.

GWC Commitments to the Water Action Decade and SDG 6

The GWC and its members/partners are hereby renewing their commitments to supporting over 30 countries for over 100 million people annually in humanitarian contexts until 2025 by the following commitments and messages:

We commit to strengthening collective action and advocating for the WASH sector to consistently provide timely, predictable, high-quality water and sanitation outcomes by providing thought leadership and spearheading coordination.
We commit to promoting joint analysis or sharing of analyses to obtain a shared understanding of need, risk, and vulnerability and the optimization of relevant data and information to understand gaps and make evidence-based decisions.
We commit to incorporating pathways that link the strategic direction of national priorities across humanitarian and development planning processes, including Humanitarian Needs Overviews (HNO) and Humanitarian Response Plans (HRP) to the Country Context Analysis (CCA) and the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF).
We commit to joined-up planning and programming supporting these collective outcomes or priorities.
We commit to calling for the recalibration of financing mechanisms to support humanitarian and development priorities as defined by collective outcomes.
We commit to being champion advocates for innovative partnerships and coordination of an integrated humanitarian-development-peace nexus approach through “joined up” action and collective outcomes.
We commit to contributing to creating a professional and motivated workforce with expertise in coordination that drives innovative and transformative WASH outcomes across humanitarian action, development cooperation and peacebuilding.
We commit to supporting the safety and security of water resources, WASH personnel, and water infrastructure by advocating for compliance with International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and International Human Rights Law (IHRL). We are convinced that water can lead us to peace