Fair Water Footprints

Building on its historic leadership at COP26, the UK Government has declared tackling climate change and biodiversity loss the number one international development priority in its new Strategy for International Development. Water is an essential element in addressing these interlinked crises, as well as making progress on the SDGs. Water is a critical factor in all aspects of security, including economic and food security, conflict management, health, education, and migration patterns. The increasing unpredictability of the hydrological cycle due to climate change and other stressors threatens to undermine or even reverse progress on the SDGs and related water security goals, as well as broader objectives related to the protection and restoration of nature and biodiversity. Current investment in the water sector is nowhere near the level needed to improve water security, while existing governance systems, regulatory instruments, investment incentive structures, and public and private finance models are ill equipped to protect against compounding water-related risks or to provision the water necessary to safeguard human health and wellbeing, sustainable livelihoods, and resilient ecosystems. Creating a more water-secure world for the billions facing water insecurity, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable, cannot happen by taking a business-as-usual approach to aid or investment. It requires transformational change to public institutions and private markets. Integrated, whole-of-government policy and finance solutions operating at multiple governance scales and across supply chains are needed to ensure that gains made in one area (such as agriculture) do not significantly undermine progress in others (such as energy access). Twentieth century water management models based on the efficiency and optimization of a given water system or piece of infrastructure are not designed for rapid or uneven changes to the water cycle. For UK sustainable development investments to be effective in supporting people and nature over the long-term, new approaches to water security are needed. For these investments to be effective, water security solutions must be both robust against changing hydrological futures as well as flexible so that they can adapt as needed when water conditions or needs change. It is in this context that the UK’s new Strengthening Governance for Transformational Change in Water Security (SGWC) programme has been initiated, and under which the initiatives included in this proposal — the Water Tracker for National Climate Planning, Resilient Water Accelerator, and the Glasgow Declaration for Fair Water Footprints — were developed.