Reflections from World Water Week 2026: Climate change, WASH service resilience and institutional preparedness

Of the 211 sessions listed across plenaries, technical sessions, talk shows and SIWI seminars, 75 carried a tag related to climate change, adaptation or mitigation. More interestingly, 35 of those 75 also carried a water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) or drinking-water tag. Almost half of the climate-tagged sessions, in other words, had a direct connection to the services that people depend on every day.

But the number itself is perhaps less interesting than what sits behind it. What are we actually talking about when we put climate and WASH together?

From measuring climate risk to making better decisions

One session I found particularly relevant was Making the Most of Data on WASH Systems, which looked at how the 2025 UN-Water GLAAS findings are being used, including in preparation for the 2026 UN Water Conference. For me, GLAAS is not really about the numbers themselves. It is about understanding what those numbers mean — and, importantly, why they look the way they do.

This becomes even more important when we bring climate resilience into the picture. GLAAS is important for understanding and strengthening WASH systems, but climate resilience requires more transformative decisions about how those systems are planned, financed and governed. Knowing where the gaps are is not enough; we need to understand the institutional and systemic reasons behind them. This is where data such as GLAAS can become particularly valuable.

A similar question came up in the session Operationalizing Climate-Resilient WASH under the Global Goal on Adaptation. Much of the discussion focused on the WHO/UNICEF work to develop indicators for monitoring climate-resilient WASH. I have followed this process from the beginning and was initially sceptical. It is now taking shape, which is encouraging.

But I remain concerned about what happens after the indicators are developed. The real test will be whether governments see clear value in using them. A technically strong global process is not enough if the intended users do not take the indicators up in their own planning and decision-making processes.

This leaves me with a broader question: are we developing better ways of measuring resilience, or better ways of making decisions? The first is necessary, but its real success ultimately depends on the second. 

From resilient infrastructure to resilient systems

The shift is also visible in how resilience itself is being discussed. At Stockholm, there appeared to be less emphasis on simply protecting infrastructure from climate hazards and greater attention to the broader conditions required to keep services functioning.

The session Climate-Resilient District WASH Systems: From Planning to Public Finance was a good example. The cases connected climate-risk prioritisation with resilient services, public finance and accountability; district planning with local resource allocation and coordination; and women-led planning with water budgeting and monitoring. Riva also presented its Systems Academy capacity-building resources.

The session was not explicitly about climate resilience throughout. But many of its building blocks — local planning, financing, coordination, capacity and accountability — are also the building blocks of climate resilience.

This suggests a useful progression:

Infrastructure resilience → Service resilience → Systems resilience

The first asks whether infrastructure can withstand a shock. The second asks whether people can continue receiving safe and reliable services. The third asks whether institutions, financing, planning, information, capacity and accountability are strong enough to sustain those services.

If this is where the conversation is heading, climate-resilient WASH is no longer a specialist climate add-on. It becomes a question of how WASH systems themselves are organised.

But who is responsible for resilience?

This made me think more critically about the growing emphasis on locally led adaptation.

The session Locally led Adaptation Approach Pays Off presented examples from Bangladesh and Kenya showing how direct community financing can deliver inclusive and durable water resilience rooted in local realities. I firmly believe in the value of local knowledge and local action. But I also have a question.

Sometimes, what we call “locally led adaptation” can look very much like “locally managed” adaptation. Local people are often already doing far more than they should have to do to cope with climate risks. If communities increasingly compensate for gaps in public systems themselves, could responsibility and accountability gradually move away from local government and other duty-bearers?

Locally led adaptation, therefore, should not mean communities carrying more responsibility for problems they did not create. It should also strengthen the institutions that are supposed to support them.

Climate resilience may be hiding in other WASH conversations

I particularly enjoyed Designing Water-Sensitive Cities by Integrating Sponginess, Sanitation and Climate Resilience. The technical case for more water-sensitive urban design was compelling. My question was more about how we communicate its value to the people who actually make urban decisions.

How do we show a mayor, planner, utility or finance department what is in it for them? What incentives would make a water-sensitive city attractive within their own institutional priorities?

This may sound like a communication question, but I think it is actually a systems question. Adoption depends not only on whether an intervention is technically sound, but also on incentives, mandates, budgets and institutional priorities.

The same logic applies to economic regulation. The session on The Role of Economic Regulation in Scaling Urban Sanitation Services did not focus strongly on climate, yet economic regulation can potentially create conditions for more transformative planning and longer-term investment that takes climate risks into account.

The discussion on packaged drinking water provided another example. I am not entirely convinced that packaged drinking water-based provision can automatically be considered a safely managed service. But the debate itself revealed something important: climate pressures are contributing to drinking-water scarcity or quality deterioration, and people respond by seeking alternative sources. Whether packaged water is viewed as a solution or a symptom, the underlying question is how WASH systems are changing as climate pressures alter conventional services.

The missing link: turning knowledge into action

Perhaps the strongest signal I took from Stockholm was that we do not necessarily lack knowledge. We have growing evidence, tools, indicators, planning approaches and financing mechanisms. What seems harder is connecting these to action.

I saw this in Moving from Basic to Safely Managed WASH: Exploring Blended Finance, which I moderated and helped organise. There is clearly strong interest in leveraging finance for climate resilience. But climate finance remains difficult to access and, for many WASH actors, somewhat mystifying. Our session tried to demystify at least one part of this — blended finance. But we need these conversations at a much larger scale and with wider communities.

The same applies to capacity. I also helped organise and moderate Building Capacity for Climate-Resilient WASH: A Practical Tool for Implementers. The overwhelming participation showed the demand for practical guidance on moving from climate awareness to climate-informed action.

At the same time, we need to recognise that WASH organisations differ in size, geography, mandate, resources and ways of communicating. No single tool will address everything. Being transparent about what a resource does not cover may therefore be as important as sharing what it does — allowing others to adapt it, build on it or fill the gaps.

So, are we ready to move from infrastructure to systems?

The sessions I attended left me with the sense that the WASH-climate conversation is moving in this direction. Climate resilience is increasingly being connected with data, planning, finance, regulation, capacity, local institutions and accountability.

But the transition is not complete. There is still a gap between producing knowledge and getting it used; between developing indicators and creating demand for them; between promoting locally led adaptation and maintaining institutional accountability; and between developing guidance and ensuring that it works across different contexts.

Perhaps this is where the next phase of climate-resilient WASH needs to focus: not only on designing more resilient infrastructure or services, but on understanding what makes WASH systems capable of learning and acting differently as the climate changes.