Water security framework

WaterAid have published a water security framework which links sustainable WASH services to livelihood, environmental and food security water uses. It is to be used together with WaterAid's previously published Sustainability Framework.

The document sets out fundamental priorities for improving the water security of poor and marginalised people as part of a community based approach to water resource management. It describes the nature of the global water crisis as it affects those who do not have access to improved services and calls for Water Resource Management plans and policies to reflect realities on the ground. It puts forward minimum commitments that WaterAid will implement as part of its service delivery work ensuring that it meets with high quality standards.

The framework document has five parts.

Part 1 introduces WaterAid’s definition of water security and how it can be measured.

Part 2 elaborates on the multiple threats to communities’ water security. Besides climate change, these include serious near-term challenges such as population growth, weak political will, low institutional capacities, environmental degradation, intense seasonality, inadequate management of water resources, inadequate disaster risk reduction planning, and poor siting, design and construction of water sources.

Part 3 discussed the four main dimensions of water security: reliable access, quantity, quality and risk of water-related disasters.

Part 4 presents community-based water resource management (CBWRM) approaches to improve water security, based on the ABCDE framework, which stands for Assessment, Bargaining, Codification, Delegation and Engineering.

Part 5 lists WaterAid’s minimum commitments to ensuring water security. They are divided into overriding minimum commitments that apply to all interventions, plus specific additional commitments for drilled water wells, hand-dug wells, spring/river-fed gravity schemes, water treatment and for drought-prone areas.