The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) is an international organization that works as a solutions broker to catalyze action and support for adaptation solutions, from the international to the local, in partnership with the public and private sector, to ensure we learn from each other and work together for a climate resilient future. Adapting to impacts of climate change provides a “win-win” for livelihoods, food security, water supply, health, security, and economic growth. The work of GCA elevates the visibility and political importance of climate adaptation and facilitates solutions, such as smarter investments, innovative technologies, and better planning to become more resilient to climate related threats. GCA is a rapidly growing organization with offices in Europe, Africa, and South Asia.  

Water lies at the core of sustainable development, playing a vital role in both socio-economic development and ecosystem health. It is central to societal growth and is closely tied to the delivery of nearly all of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Water drives the supply and preservation of a wide range of ecosystem services, benefiting both people and nature. Given its cross-cutting and foundational nature, water is crucial for climate adaptation, bridging the climate system, human society, and the environment. 

African countries face the challenge of recurring floods and droughts driven by climate change, which significantly impacts access to water services.
Recurring floods disrupt countries’ capacity to provide adequate water and sanitation services.  

Climate change adds pressure to already strained water supply systems, posing a threat to achieving universal access to water. Access to potable water and sanitation services in most African countries is currently less than 50%, with even lower access in rural areas. Although urban populations in countries like Kenya, Cote d’Ivoire, and Namibia benefit from improved water services, most of the rural population have limited access to equivalent levels of service. Significant disparities exist across countries and climate change further exacerbates the challenges to provide safe water and sanitation services to both rural and urban populations. 

The impacts of climate change on water resources in Africa are already evident; they create complex development challenges for communities, ecosystem integrity, and governments. The growing frequency and intensity of wet and dry events, coupled with variable precipitation due to climate change, are impacting the quantity, quality, timing, and distribution of water across landscapes. Transboundary river basins face additional complexities, as collaborative management becomes crucial but challenging.  

Strengthening climate adaptation capacity is essential to establishing resilient watersheds, building resilience of water services, ensuring water security under diverse climate scenarios, and supporting social and economic development. Integrating climate change impacts and risks into watershed management, planning, and implementation – through both grey and nature-based solutions – offers significant opportunities for enhancing ecosystem integrity and human well-being for the future.  

Countries are investing in water resources management programs and projects to address local flooding and drought risks, adapt to climate change, and improve the climate resilience of water and sanitation services. GCA provides technical assistance to International Financial Institution (IFI) – financed projects to ensure that climate adaptation and resilience is incorporated in project technical designs. This support leads to improvements in climate resilience of water and sanitation systems and contributes to the long-term sustainability of access to water and sanitation services. 

Technical and institutional capacity building, along with financial support and partnerships is urgently needed to enhance the feasibility and effectiveness of climate adaptation solutions across physical, natural, and social infrastructure.  GCA plans to contribute to capacity development efforts to ensure resilience of investments in water and sanitation services delivery. This will be done through a Climate-Resilient Water Services (CRWS) masterclass to build the capacity of government water sector officials, including water service providers in several countries in 2025, by collaborating with local institutions to ensure sustained expertise long after project implementation ends. The Climate-resilient Water Services masterclass will contribute to enhancing the capacity of national and local governments to accelerate and scale high-impact climate adaptation and resilience-building efforts in delivering water services. The CRWS masterclass seeks to continuously enhance capacity to promote a virtuous cycle of continuous reflection and improvement of tools, methods, and approaches. It will flexibly deploy targeted support through a suite of capacity building actions. This will enable the government water sector and other officials to address climate related challenges affecting the delivery of water and sanitation services under different climate scenarios. The CRWS masterclass will deliver practical knowledge relevant for climate resilient infrastructure planning and development, policy (i.e. legislation, regulation), climate resilient water utilities, and service delivery (both formal and informal) – serving the needs of diverse actors from all sectors (water resources, irrigation, fisheries, WASH), ensuring that capacity is built across these linked sectors in an integrated way. 

GCA is seeking a capacity building partner to deliver a Climate Resilience Masterclass for government officials in several African countries. GCA invites concept notes from partners with experience in delivering learning materials and facilitating training for public officials on climate resilience in water resources management, WASH, and other related disciplines in Africa. This learning program will focus on strengthening climate-resilient water services and will be delivered in at least seven countries. The masterclass should be designed as a one week (five-day) intensive course in each country.