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The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has joined with partners at COP27 to announce the ambition to mobilize more than USD 200 million from 2021 to 2025 to build water and sanitation resilience and security in Asia and the Pacific region.
The Asia and the Pacific Water Resilience Initiative, also known as RUWR: Are you water resilient?, is a wide-ranging program aiming to build capacity and resources for innovative solutions to mainstream resilience by addressing gaps, needs, and opportunities at the local level, ADB said in a statement on Tuesday. This fund mobilization is part of ADB's commitment to scale up financing for climate change adaptation. Building on the mobilization of more than USD 80 million in 2021-2022, ADB now welcomed new support to take effect in 2023. "The Government of the Netherlands is supporting the initiative with a USD 20 million contribution to the newly established Water Resilience Trust Fund, which falls under the banner of RUWR and will focus on adaptation, innovation, and inclusivity to accelerate water resilience," the statement said. "The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is providing USD 10 million to the Sanitation Financing Partnership Trust Fund under the initiative, which will help expand inclusive urban sanitation services; pilot and upscale sanitation technology and innovations; and support policies and capacities to deliver inclusive, resilient, and sustainable sanitation systems." ADB plans to allocate more than USD 120 million in grants from 2023 to 2025 toward water and sanitation security and resilience to support the initiative. It has also established a technical assistance cluster of USD 8 million, called Mainstreaming Water Resilience in Asia and the Pacific, which will manage the initiative. The contributions from the Netherlands and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will add to the USD 115.9 million grant financing received from partners under the Water Financing Partnership Facility (WFPF), which has supported 113 ADB investment projects in 20 countries since 2006, it added. Other funding partners of WFPF are the governments of Spain and Austria. "Water is one of the world's most critical natural resources and one increasingly threatened by the impacts of climate change in Asia and the Pacific. It is the primary medium through which we will feel the effects of climate change," said ADB's Chief of Water Sector Group Neeta Pokhrel. "Small transformational steps toward water and sanitation resilience today will mean we can make great strides in climate adaptation at the local level," Pokhrel added in the statement. (ANI)
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