Q&A: What WASH work will look like for USAID in 2022

Climate resilience, governance, and finance are key areas of focus for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s WASH work, according to Jeff Goldberg, director of USAID’s Center for Water Security, Sanitation and Hygiene. “We've definitely learned — along with the rest of the WASH sector — that success needs to be defined as more than infrastructure, and more than taps and toilets alone,” Goldberg said. “We have to be working on governance, finance, [and] the broader enabling environment to ensure the sustainability of our investments over the longer term.” Last month, USAID made its annual announcement of its list of high priority countries for the U.S. government’s WASH investments for the year ahead. Seventeen of the 18 countries prioritized for 2021 will remain high priorities alongside four new additions: Guatemala, the Philippines, Rwanda, and Zambia. Afghanistan was removed from the list. “These 21 countries are places where we are committed to doubling down on our efforts to increase access to drinking water and sanitation, in support of our agency plan under the U.S. Global Water Strategy,” Goldberg said. Following USAID’s release of the draft policy for local capacity development, which aims to put local voices at the heart of the agency’s activities, Goldberg spoke to Devex about how local implementing organizations operating in the priority countries can engage with USAID and what this year’s list signifies about the agency’s new global water strategy — to be released next year. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. What should people take away from the new additions to the priority countries list? The Water for the World Act of 2014 requires that we annually designate high priority countries to be the primary recipient of foreign assistance on drinking water and sanitation. We go through a rigorous process where we use the criteria in the act to make these designations. The criteria are needs-based criteria. The act defines that as access rates to drinking water and sanitation and under-five child mortality due to diarrhoeal disease … We went through a robust analysis of … needs and opportunities using third party data sources, and that led us to the current list of 21 high priority countries. Our intention is to prioritize recommendations for funding to these high priority countries, to ensure that they are the primary recipients of foreign assistance on water. It means that we're prioritizing our [Washington] D.C.-based staff support and technical assistance to these countries, and these countries are going to be putting together high priority country plans. Those are costed, evidence-based, and results-oriented plans that will give a results-oriented vision on how the countries will be advancing WASH objectives under the Global Water Strategy. Are there any new approaches that you'll be implementing throughout 2022? Our overall global water strategy and agency plan has a new strategic focus on governance and finance that was rolled out in our 2017 strategy. In only three years of reporting, since rolling that out, we've already mobilized $315,000,000 in new financing for the sector. This is really an exciting approach because, while we are a large donor on water and sanitation, we know that our investments aren't going to fill the financing gap alone, which is upwards of $1 trillion annually. We are committed to mobilizing additional finance. We're very excited coming out of COP 26. [There], we made a commitment as part of the [U.S.] President's Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience to mobilize $1 billion in public and private finance for climate-resilient water and sanitation. That's another thing that we'll be looking at as we start programming in these high priority countries. The agency's draft Climate Change Strategy also has drinking water, sanitation, hygiene, and water resources management featured wholesomely in it. We've also elevated water resources management as a cross-cutting [issue] in the new Global Food Security Strategy. All of this is really a precursor to the revision to our own Global Water Strategy that's due in October 2022. I'm glad you brought up the strategy. How much of the focus on these country priority areas signifies what's to come in this new water strategy? Our intention is to create a stable programming environment, where we are redesignating these countries on an annual basis through the forthcoming strategy period. Barring any major changes in foreign assistance to these countries, we very much are looking forward to developing prospective country plans. We're going to be rolling out our country plans after the delivery of the Global Water Strategy next October. We're in an early consultative phase. We just held a public listening session with our partners, the Department of State, where we accepted both written and verbal comments. We're in the process of digesting those and looking to incorporate them as we approach the revision to the Global Water Strategy. You mentioned climate resilience. How big a component has that been in USAID’s work in the past and how is that changing going forward? The entire agency has a process called climate risk management that we incorporate into activity design. WASH activity design actively goes through a process to consider climate risk management as we're putting together investments. With the new climate change strategy, we expect to be doing even more of this in terms of mainstreaming climate considerations across everything that we're doing in WASH and broader water resource management. “In only three years of reporting, since rolling that out, we've already mobilized $315,000,000 in new financing for the sector.” --— Jeff Goldberg, director, USAID’s Center for Water Security, Sanitation and Hygiene We know that the climate crisis is a water crisis and that 90% of climate disasters are water-related [and] manifest [as] floods, droughts, and sea level rises. This is absolutely something that we have a pivotal role in in the water sector, of paying attention to, both in terms of broader water resources management to blunt the effects of climate change, and then climate risk mitigation to protect our investments and protect WASH infrastructure from the effects of climate change. For implementing organizations operating in USAID’s priority countries, what advice would you give them about how to go about having a closer working relationship with USAID? In terms of relationships with our priority countries, country plans, I think, are great touch points to see the specific vision and direction that every single country will be going in to implement the goals and objectives of the Global Water Strategy, and our agency plan under it. In addition to that, the agency posts all of [its] competitive opportunities in the high priority countries on the business forecast. There's a new website that our administrator recently worked to release called workwithusaid.org, which is a great platform for new organizations that are looking to work with USAID and learn how to best engage with us. Visit the WASH Works series for more coverage on water, sanitation, and hygiene — and importantly, how WASH efforts intersect with other development challenges. You can join the conversation using the hashtag #WASHWorks.