Hydrating the Global Goal on Adaptation
This blog is co-authored by the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation, WaterAid, and Sanitation and Water for All
When it comes to mainstreaming water resilience, the past ten years have seen a fundamental change within climate policy spheres. While the Paris Agreement (2015) fully omitted water from its text, the IPCC AR6 Working Group II report (2022) underscored the need for water-centric approaches to adaptation. The following year, the first Global Stocktake of climate action revealed gaps in resilience planning, strengthening calls for dedicated water indicators to enhance adaptation strategies and ensure more effective, climate-resilient responses. The 2023 UN Water Conference reinforced commitments to embedding water into and across global frameworks. COP28 in the UAE marked a turning point with the adoption of the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience, which fleshes out the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) and includes a specific target on water resilience. Building on this progress, the two-year UAE-Belem Work Programme under the UAE Framework focuses on the structured implementation and tracking of national commitments under the GGA.
For this reason, the year 2025 provides a historic opportunity to ensure that water and sanitation considerations are fully embedded in global climate adaptation efforts. With 11 thematic and policy targets outlined in the UAE Framework, the UAE-Belem Work Programme has been organized to develop a set of no more than 100 indicators to track progress under the GGA. Since late 2024, technical experts appointed by the UNFCCC have been working to identify and design forward-looking, practical indicators for each target. Thus far, however, the technical working groups for each target have been working independently, with limited mandate for how to consider cross-cutting elements.
As the foundation of climate resilience, water influences all the targets outlined in the UAE Framework. Water security is essential for sustainable food systems and resilient agriculture, requiring climate-smart irrigation, enhanced water efficiency, and ecosystem-based solutions to ensure stable food supplies. Likewise, health systems rely on access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services. Without climate-resilient water infrastructure in healthcare facilities, communities remain highly vulnerable to disease outbreaks and waterborne illnesses. Adopting systemic management approaches, such as “One Water” or “One Health”, fosters positive synergies, enhances resilience, and prevents fragmented responses that could undermine adaptation efforts or lead to maladaptation. To effectively address these interdependencies, the UAE-Belem Work Programme must move beyond siloed approaches to capture the critical linkages between thematic targets and ensure a cohesive, adaptive response to climate challenges.
This year, three key workshops—the first of which is taking place this week in Bonn, Germany—will review and refine these indicators ahead of COP30 in Brazil. Ensuring that indicators across the 11 targets reflect the interconnected nature of the thematic targets is essential for enhancing the ability of communities and ecosystems to prepare for, respond to, and recover from complex stressors like climate change. Recognizing water and sanitation as integral components across all thematic targets and indicator development remains a critical priority.
Beyond just a set of indicators, however, the GGA should strive to render a mosaic image of what adaptation looks like in a given place and identify ways to further enhance resilience. That mosaic image, clear in some areas, blurry in others, should successfully provide an overall picture of adaptation and a narrative for pathways towards increased adaptation resilience. Because adaptation is inherently rooted in localized realities and societal dynamics, a synergistic approach is called for where global goals help drive countries towards a common high-level vision that is purposeful, efficient and implementable, but where they also enable locally led, gender transformative and inclusive adaptation action on the ground.
To ensure effective implementation of the GGA, adaptation planning must emphasize improved governance models, inclusive decision-making, and strengthened risk assessment frameworks. These topics are included in the policy targets of the UAE Framework and should systematically incorporate thematic elements of the Framework to ensure holistic climate resilience. Similarly, the role of climate finance for adaptation and resilience cannot be overstated. At a moment where adaptation finance needs far outpace investment, ensuring we have credible, effective indicators for measuring adaptation and resilience can help drive increased financial flows towards adaptation.
As global temperatures rise, those least responsible for climate change continue to bear its highest costs. The UAE-Belem Work Programme must support the development of robust adaptation strategies built on water resilience, ensuring that climate action is inclusive, effective, and driven by evidence-based policymaking. By prioritizing holistic water governance across the thematic and policy targets of the UAE Framework, the Global Goal on Adaptation can model the transformative, systems-level approach needed to build a resilient future for all.