A Look Back at AGWA’s 2023 Achievements

As we welcome the new year with plenty of optimism and reasons for excitement, we wanted to also take the time to recognize all of the amazing achievements the AGWA network made in 2023. The year presented its share of challenges, but our members, partners, and the Secretariat made tremendous strides in advancing climate-resilient water management practices and policies through a range of initiatives. We also look back on the year with gratitude. Thanks to all of the AGWA members that made generous donations to our nonprofit to help further the work we do.

Below we do our best to capture a portion of the developments and milestones worth celebrating. So give yourself a pat on the back, AGWA members, and use this as motivation to continue striving in 2024!

Organizational Developments

  • AGWA underwent its first full organizational audit to make sure we are in compliance with best practices around our financials. The auditor covered 2021 and 2022 with no negative findings. This will now be an annual process.

  • The overall budget of AGWA continued to grow as AGWA continued several multi-year grants and received funding from foundations for the first time.

  • Members approved a more inclusive and dispersed method of voting for Board Members. We elected two new Board Members to fill openings following the 2023 Annual Meeting in Stockholm.

  • Membership growth continued at a steady pace of 11% as we reached new audiences.

  • We released several new publications including two flagship reports for the High-Level Experts and Leaders Panel on Water and Disasters (HELP) in March alongside an interim version of the main WR4ER Report.

  • The Secretariat was active in attending global events to highlight our programs, meet with partners, and develop new connections. In addition to others listed below, we were proud to take part in Climate Week NYC, Cairo Water Week, Stockholm World Water Week, AWS Forum, and more.

Policy Engagement

  • AGWA’s Policy Director was seconded to the COP28 Presidency to serve in the first ever role as Water Advisor to the presidency. This represented a major advancement in raising the stakes of water on the COP agenda.

  • We sent four members of the Secretariat to COP28 in UAE, in addition to another long-term AGWA policy consultant, many Board Members, and dozens of partners/members. We were involved in 20+ COP events, including an official side event and Presidency event.

  • AGWA once again served on the Steering Committee of the COP Water Pavilion and led the sub-working group on policy engagement. Similarly, we were once again involved with the Resilience Hub, where we were one of four organizations leading the water and natural infrastructure theme.

  • Between COPs, AGWA participated in other areas of UNFCCC engagement such as the Adaptation Committee, the SB in Bonn, and Regional Climate Weeks for LAC and Africa (via consultants).

  • The Water Tracker saw tremendous growth and success in 2023. A dozen countries have now implemented the Tracker, with just as many in early stages of engagement. This is a great example of crowd-sourcing and working with excellent partners from the AGWA network that will continue into 2024 and beyond.

  • Early in the year was the UN 2023 Water Conference, a major event nearly 50 years in the making. AGWA sent several members of the Secretariat and an AGWA Fellow to lead our numerous events.

Technical Programming

  • AGWA served on the Steering Committee for UNESCO’s April conference on Climate Risk, Vulnerability, and Resilience Building that took place in Paris and online. AGWA’s ED attended and spoke as well.

  • A CRIDA steering group met regularly to set out a long-term workplan to scale up implementation, capacity, and plan the next phase of guidance, with UNESCO taking a leading role.

  • The Water Resilience for Economic Resilience (WR4ER) initiative took great strides, launching an interim report at the UN 2023 Water Conference and convening several events throughout the year.

  • AGWA now hosts the secretariat for the Water Initiative for Net Zero (WINZ). This is another major undertaking that represents an expansion into issues around mitigation and water. We anticipate big developments for WINZ in 2024!

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