Introducing the Sustainable Water Partnership

Water is the source of all life, central to human growth and survival. For thousands of years, people have settled near rivers, lakes and streams not only to drink and cook and wash, but also because water is essential for trade, agriculture and development. Water is power. When civilizations develop ways to harness, preserve and allocate water, they thrive. When they do not, when water supplies are low, contaminated or poorly managed, societies are threatened. The Sustainable Water Partnership (SWP) looks at water through the lens of water security: the adaptive capacity to safeguard the sustainable availability of, access to, and safe use of an adequate, reliable and resilient quantity and quality of water for health, livelihoods, ecosystems and productive economies.

Funded by USAID and implemented by Winrock International, SWP provides sophisticated solutions to the water problems facing international communities. Closely collaborating with USAID missions and government counterparts, we customize activities to meet each community’s unique water needs. Our participatory, holistic approach to water resource management aims to strengthen water security, improve public health and livelihoods, alleviate poverty, encourage economic growth and promote political stability. We achieve these goals by following a few essential practices:

• We focus our activities on priority water risks, refusing to be overwhelmed by the enormity of water problems.
• We engage and empower water users to manage their own water resources.
• We attack the root causes of water problems, not just their symptoms, through a science-based, “systems thinking” approach.
• We bolster our decision-making by accounting for inevitable uncertainties, whether they be scientific, economic or behavioral.
• We develop negotiated integrated solutions that offer real benefits — developing infrastructure, managing watersheds, changing behaviors and improving institutions.
• We enable all concerned parties — from government officials to engineers to citizens — to adaptively manage water resources and to engage in social learning, thus improving the community’s resilience and ensuring its sustainability.

SWP is supported by a team of globally recognized partners — Tetra Tech, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Stockholm Environmental Institute (SEI), World Resources Institute (WRI), CEO Water Mandate and mWater — providing our beneficiaries with access to a wealth of technical expertise and field experience. With $13 million in funding from USAID, our five-year activity is already implementing pilot projects in Pakistan, Cambodia and Kenya. We’re targeting 14 countries in Africa and Asia for our work – but we’re open to expansion in the coming years.

Through our innovative, all-inclusive approach, we will improve water security around the world, changing the lives of millions in the process. We hope you’ll join us.