2024 marks a decade of progress since the unanimous passage of The Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act and its whole-of-government approach. This transformative piece of legislation called for the establishment of the U.S. Global Water Strategy and reshaped our approach to water security. Thanks to this landmark legislation, USAID together with our inter-agency partners, are leading global efforts to create a water-secure world, where people and nations have the water they need to be prosperous, stable, and healthy.
In the ten years since the Water for the World Act became law, USAID’s water security, sanitation, and hygiene investments have helped millions of people gain access to safe drinking water and sanitation services and hygiene facilities. These programs have also improved water resources management and benefited communities across the globe.
In honor of the tenth anniversary of this milestone legislation, USAID convened stakeholders in a town hall in January to kick off the celebration. We closed out the celebratory year with a photo exhibit in USAID’s Washington, DC headquarters showcasing a wide range of programming around the world enabled by the Water for the World Act.
New Activities and Partnerships to Further the Global Water Strategy
In 2024, USAID Missions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Madagascar, and beyond launched innovative flagship activities to expand access to water and sanitation services and improve water resources management. These activities are contributing to USAID’s targets under the GWS (2022-2027) to reach 22 million people with access to water, 22 million people with access to sanitation, strengthen 1,000 critical water security institutions, and mobilize $1 billion in non USG funding.
Learn more about USAID’s newest activities below:
- Haiti: The Water Security and Systems Strengthening Activity (USAID Eau) activity will provide technical support to Haiti’s water service providers and the Ministry of Environment’s Institute for Water Resources Management to strengthen institutional capacity and improve management of Haiti’s water resources. It will advance USAID/Haiti’s GWS High Priority Country Plan targets of increasing access to safely managed water services for 1 million people, providing basic sanitation to 100,000 people, and improving planning, decision making, institutional collaboration, and implementation on water resources management. Click here to learn more about how we work.
- India: The Transformative Partnerships for Water and Sanitation Activity will develop groundbreaking solutions to improve water and sanitation systems through collaboration with the private sector, government, and academia. The activity will advance USAID/India’s GWS High Priority Country Plan of increasing access to safely managed drinking water for 670,000 people and safely managed sanitation services for 660,000 people; mobilizing $50 million for WASH products and services and WRM; and strengthening 200 water and sanitation sector institutions to manage water resources and improve water supply and sanitation services. Stay tuned for more information on Global Waters.
- Madagascar: The Dio Sera (Clean Business) and Rano Maharitra (Sustainable Water) activities will advance USAID/Madagascar’s GWS High Priority Country Plan targets including helping 225,000 people gain access to at least basic drinking water services and 675,000 people gain access to at least basic sanitation services; will mobilize roughly $4 million for the water security, sanitation, and hygiene (WSSH) sector; and will train 375 water sector institutions. Learn more about these activities on Global Waters!
- Senegal: The USAID Senegal WASH Services activity aims to improve access to quality water and sanitation by focusing on market-based solutions, governance enhancement, and private-sector engagement. The activity advances USAID/Senegal’s GWS High Priority Country Plan ambition to increase access to basic or higher-quality water services for 500,000 people; increase access to basic or higher quality sanitation to 500,000 people; strengthen 100 WRM institutions and water and sanitation service providers; and mobilize roughly $5 million for the sector. Stay tuned for additional information on Global Waters.
- Tanzania: USAID Maji Bombani (Piped Water) will provide professional quality control engineering and construction services to assist USAID/Tanzania to construct high-quality water supply systems and wastewater treatment facilities across the country. This activity will contribute to USAID/Tanzania’s GWS High Priority Country Plan targets of providing access to drinking water services for 840,000 Tanzanians, sanitation services for 1 million Tanzanians, mobilizing $10.9 million in new funding for WASH from local institutions and non-state actors, and strengthening 50 water and sanitation institutions. More updates on Global Waters are coming soon.
Leveraging for Impact in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
USAID launched two major new partnerships in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that exemplify how USAID is leveraging its resources to maximize impact:
- A new trilateral partnership between USAID, the German investment and development bank KfW, and the Government of DRC will support the national water utility, REGIDESO, to rehabilitate infrastructure in secondary cities and enhance water supply access for those populations.
- USAID also partnered with the World Bank to support the implementation of water sector governance reforms, improve local private sector capacity, and enhance the performance of REGIDESO through targeted technical assistance. This partnership, a first-of-its-kind for USAID and the World Bank, is implemented through the Global Water Security and Sanitation Partnership and will provide wraparound technical support to the $1.25 billion Water Supply and Sanitation Access Program that the World Bank recently launched in the DRC.
These DRC partnerships, reinforced by country commitment and buy-in, demonstrate how USAID is leveraging its comparative advantages and finite resources to accelerate water sector progress at a transformational scale.
Photo credit: USAID
Advancing Partnerships and Progress at Major Global Events
At the World Water Forum in Bali in May, USAID was honored to announce that we met our commitment of spending $1.2B on water over the previous three years. In addition, USAID was honored to engage with partners at our booth, expand the Global Water Strategy Action Research Initiative into Indonesia, and strengthen and broaden our relationships with key partners in the Indo-Pacific region.
Photo credit: USAID
In June, USAID Global Water Coordinator Nancy J. Eslick participated in the Dushanbe Water Conference in Tajikistan. She also inaugurated a newly installed water system in the First of May village of Yovon District, which will provide more than 3,575 people, including a school and a medical facility, with safe drinking water.
“We see water operators, consumers, and local authorities as one interlinked system. The meaningful participation of stakeholders at all levels leads to more sustainable and reliable service provision.” —Nancy J. Eslick, USAID Global Water Coordinator, Yovon District, Tajikistan, June 2024
Photo credit: USAID/Tajikistan
In August, USAID connected with partners and stakeholders at World Water Week in Stockholm, where we announced our new DRC partnerships with the World Bank and KfW and engaged with key donors and implementers. A key highlight was our focus on translating evidence into action through our GWS Action Research Initiative, a flagship effort aimed at maximizing the impact, efficiency, and effectiveness of USAID and partner investments to improve WASH and WRM programming. USAID hosted and participated in events to share actionable findings, including employing public-private partnerships to improve rural water access, combatting water scarcity and pollution, deploying data for decision-making, strengthening sector governance, and promoting women as leaders in the sector.
Photo credit: USAID
In October, representatives from some of USAID’s water and sanitation activities gathered at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Water & Health Conference to present and host sessions. USAID hosted and shared key findings in sessions including “Leveraging Data to Address Haiti’s Growing Groundwater Insecurity” and “Spotlighting Hand Hygiene: Elevating the little H on Global Handwashing Day and Beyond.” The range of topics covered expanding access to piped water supply systems to creating healthy business environments for sanitation markets.
Photo Credit: USAID
Honoring Water Warriors
On World Water Day last March, USAID announced its 2024 Water Warriors – an award given to USAID staff who exemplify excellence in accelerating progress toward a water secure world: Sandy Ngilambi and Maggie Northman. Sandy and Maggie are putting their extensive know-how and skills to work with local partners and communities to advance water security in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Mozambique.
Cooperating Country Nationals Advancing Water Security and Sanitation Progress
In honor of Foreign Service Nationals Recognition Day in November, USAID recognized four exceptional staff working in El Salvador, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Mozambique. Learn more about how their leadership, technical expertise, institutional relationships, and nuanced knowledge of local traditions and networks—coupled with their credibility within the communities USAID serves—are essential to USAID’s water and sanitation success!
Moving From Insights to Action
The USAID Global Water Strategy Action Research Initiative (GWS ARI) generates timely and practical evidence to strengthen water, sanitation, and hygiene and water resources management programming. Through the GWS ARI, USAID is fostering innovation, generating new evidence for decision makers, and applying findings adaptively in its programming.
In 2024, USAID published actionable findings from GWS ARI on a variety of topics, including:
- Water Quality Testing of Rural Water Services in Rural Africa
- Improving Water Quality Management, Water Equity, and Non-Revenue Water in Ghana
- Materials and Methods for Latrine Pit Design
- Capacity Strengthening for Local Sanitation Service Providers
Investing in the Workforce
From May 6–10, USAID hosted 70 colleagues from over 30 countries around the world for the flagship Global Water Workshop in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. The workshop aimed to strengthen staff capacity to implement the 2022–2027 U.S. Global Water Strategy; to empower Mission water and sanitation leads; and to facilitate continued cross-Mission exchange. Participants also took home lessons from a visit to the Berkeley Springs water treatment facility and a number of green infrastructure sites built to increase the resilience of the town to major floods.
To promote humanitarian-development-peace coordination, the workshop was held alongside the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance’s semi-annual WASH advisors’ retreat, enabling development and humanitarian assistance colleagues to collaborate and engage in a session on disaster preparation.
Photo credit: USAID
2024 Water-Secure World Photo Contest Finalists
With nearly 250 photos submitted, this year’s photo contest demonstrated a wide range of water security, sanitation and hygiene programming. Together, the photos celebrate and illustrate the transformative role water and sanitation play in improving lives and livelihoods as USAID works to accelerate progress toward a water-secure world.
Looking Ahead
After a year of celebrating a decade of achievement under the Water for the World Act, we are excited to embrace new opportunities, and look forward to accelerating high-impact water and sanitation progress in the next decade. In January, we will be giving the new year a fresh start with our ‘Resource Roundup’ on social behavior change and releasing the 2024 Global Water Strategy Annual Report. As we look forward to designing, funding, and implementing high-impact water and sanitation activities in 2025 and beyond, we are grateful for the bipartisan support and strong foundation of the Water for the World Act of 2014. The progress achieved thanks to this landmark legislation underscores that water security is a cross-cutting issue that transcends boundaries and transforms lives.
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Banner photo credit: José Palomino, USAID Natural Infrastructure for Water Security Activity