Water Resilience Trust Fund under the Water Financing Partnership Facility

What is the fund?

The Water Resilience Trust Fund was established in January 2023 under the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Water Financing Partnership Facility (WFPF). Established as a separate multidonor trust fund, it aims to support critical and transformational actions by government agencies, communities, and the private sector needed to strengthen water resilience in Asia and the Pacific. The Fund’s objectives are aligned with the vision of ADB's Strategy 2030 and Strategy 2030 Water Sector Directional Guide: A Water-Secure and Resilient Asia and the Pacific to deliver support in four areas of operational focus for the water sector: (i) water as a sustainable resource, (ii) universal and safe water services, (iii) productive use of water in agriculture and energy, and (iv) reduced climate change and water-related disaster risks.

Guiding the implementation of the Water Sector Directional Guide are five guiding principles for improving development outcomes: (i) building resilience and adaptive capacity, (ii) promoting inclusiveness and gender equality, (iii) embracing environmental sustainability and the circular economy, (iv) improving governance and catalyzing finance, and (v) fostering innovation and technological advancement.

What are the priorities?

The fund prioritizes activities that focus on achieving local water and sanitation resilience, aligned with countries’ needs, national development priorities in the water sector, and sector plans for addressing climate change. Activities should: (i) support capacity development in ADB’s developing member countries (DMCs), (ii) help build knowledge base on water resilience, (iii) help create an enabling environment through improved policies and planning processes, and (iv) facilitate pipeline development for sovereign and nonsovereign water resilience projects.

What kind of activities are eligible?

The fund resources support the WFPF-eligible activities as follows:

Direct project support. The fund can support project preparation and implementation, including upstream work to inform project design and investment dialogue with ADB developing member countries (DMCs).

Program quality support. The fund can support strengthening of policies, institutions and regulations; capacity building; and knowledge management.

Eligible project types include:

• Policy reforms to create an enabling environment for sustainable water resilience. Policy and regulatory reforms that encourage more efficient and equitable water use, protection of water resources, and promotion of investment flows to finance investments in water resilience.
• Strengthened planning and diagnostics to support water resilience. Detailed sector diagnostics to identify adaptation pathways that will lead to a pipeline of projects that support water resilience, and subsequently inform country strategies and programming.
• Project design. Design of investment projects with strong water adaptation components to address identified climate change risks, particularly adaptation-focused investments. Projects with significant mitigation components will also be supported on case-by-case basis. Design support may be provided at all project development stages including at the pre-feasibility, feasibility, project concept development, and project preparation stages.
• Project implementation. Support for the implementation of water adaptation and mitigation measures under ADB-financed investment projects, by providing additional resources for activities such as capacity development and pilot-testing innovative approaches, which have high potential for replication and scale-up.
• Capacity building. Development of training and tools, particularly those offered through the Asia and the Pacific Water Resilience Hub — a collaborative platform for strengthening the water resilience of water entities in DMCs. Partnerships will be established with institutions such as universities, research institutes, and think tanks with globally recognized expertise in water resilience to design and deliver capacity building measures.
• Knowledge management. Capture and dissemination of good practices in building water resilience, including activities supported by the Fund to promote replication and scale-up in other DMCs.

Who is eligible to receive the support?

All ADB DMCs are eligible to receive support from the fund. In the case of the contributions from the Government of the Netherlands, all DMCs are eligible for the fund support for knowledge management and capacity building activities toward water resilience. Country-specific support for sector diagnostics, policy dialogue, project design, and implementation will focus on ADB’s nineteen (19) DMCs, including: Bangladesh, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Kiribati, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Viet Nam. However, if there are proposals with transformational water resilience (expected) outcomes that can be replicated and/or have demonstration impacts and/or potential for scaling up to provide significant resilience gains from other countries, then they can also be considered on a case-by-case-basis subject to agreement between the Netherlands and ADB.

Who supports the fund?

The initial support to the fund is being provided by the Government of the Netherlands with a 20ドル million contribution committed through a channel financing arrangement signed in March 2023.

Where can I get more information?

Further information is available from the WFPF Secretariat.