AWARe (Action on Water Adaptation or Resilience) is a project that would promote inclusive cooperation to solve water-related concerns and solutions throughout climate change adaptation, a press release states.
It was established by Egypt’s COP27 Presidency in collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
AWARe draws together the Water and Climate Coalition, the Adaptation Efforts Coalition, and the Marrakesh Partnership Climate Action Pathway Water in order to scale up adaptation action. Its goal is to contribute to a good outcome at the 2023 UN Conference on Water.
The program intends to provide transitional adaptation solutions for people and the earth in close collaboration with other stakeholders, including the African Union (AU) and African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW). Three action priorities will be the main emphasis of AWARe:
- Reduce global water loss and increase water supply.
- Put forth and support the implementation of policies and procedures for cooperative water-related adaptation action and their associated benefits.
- In order to achieve Agenda 2030, in particular SDG 6, it is important to foster collaboration and connections between water and climate action.
Dr. Hani Sewilam, Egypt’s Minister of Water Systems and Irrigation, Ambassador Ayman Amin Tharwat, Egypt’s Deputy Director for the Department of Climate, Environment and Sustainable Development, and Dr. Elena Manaenkova, the WMO’s Deputy Secretary General, gave speeches at the opening session of COP27’s Thematic Day for Water to introduce AWARe.
According to Minister Hani Sewilam, the global water crisis has an impact on billions of people. In order to address water as a crucial component of better resilience and adaptation to climate change, inclusive cooperation will be catalyzed by the AWARe initiative.
The AWARe initiative encourages measures to decouple economic growth from freshwater use and degradation, develop national utilization plans, adaptation and mitigation strategies, and protect and restore freshwater ecosystems. It also works to pursue cooperative assessment of river basin scale adaptation and mitigation alternatives and risk of mal-adaptation, and supports mutually agreed upon policy solutions to advance a “do no harm” approach.
