Highlights:

The report aims to identify the water challenges and risks faced by the poorest and most marginalized populations and to inform policies that enhance water accessibility and climate resilience while alleviating poverty and boosting shared prosperity.  

The report highlights the importance of water for shared prosperity, as it contributes to health and education, jobs and income, peace and social cohesion, and the environment. However, disparities in access to water resources and services are widespread, posing a significant threat to shared prosperity, particularly in low-income and least-developed nations.  

Climate change further exacerbates these challenges, disproportionately affecting developing countries and poor households. To address these challenges, the report outlines the following policy recommendations that policymakers can consider to achieve equitable and inclusive water security:  

1. Enhancing resilience to extreme hydro-climatic risks for the poorest: 

a. Setting up robust and inclusive early-warning systems. 

b. Developing insurance programs for weather risks and mitigating exposure to hydro-climatic risks through regulations and financial support. 

c. Scaling up social protection schemes to assist vulnerable communities impacted by floods, droughts, or both.  

2. Improving water resources development, management, and allocation: 

a. Scaling up nature-based solutions through innovative financing schemes and evidence-based approaches. 

b. Enabling coordination of and cooperation for water allocation through information sharing and financial incentives. 

c. Adopting water accounting to inform water allocation decisions.  

3. Improving equitable and inclusive service delivery: 

a. Scaling up financing through institutional and tariff reforms. 

b. Establishing participatory water governance to ensure transparency and accountability. 

c. Creating an enabling regulatory and policy environment to promote innovations. 

d. Improving coordination of institutions responsible for water, health, education, and urban planning.  

The report emphasizes the need for a comprehensive set of interventions to achieve these three policy objectives, which aim to achieve (1) resilience to extreme hydro-climatic risks, (2) water resources development and coordinated allocation to different water uses, and (3) equitable and inclusive delivery of water services. 

[Text generated by GPT@JRC using Generative AI technology]