The initiative of the Water Working Group, or GT WASH
In emergency situations, humanitarian organizations must first address the essential needs of populations at risk: drinking, eating, shelter, and medical care.
Access to safe drinking water and sanitation is part of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (2015–2030), with Goal 6 specifically dedicated to water and its 20 targets on water management. Yet this agenda is falling far behind the objective of universal access to safe drinking water by 2030 — now only five years away!
Today, 2 billion people still lack access to safe drinking water, and 3.5 billion have no adequate sanitation. While there has been progress, worrying setbacks are being observed, especially for populations in Sub-Saharan Africa and in many urban areas of the developing world.
Humanitarian aid must meet essential needs for drinking water and sanitation in the most dangerous situations for populations affected by war, disasters, and epidemics — often under the hardest-to-reach conditions.
Currently, from Yemen to the DRC, from Gaza to Sudan, 771 million people lack access to safe drinking water, and 1.69 billion lack access to sanitation.
To be more effective, water-focused humanitarian actors in France have come together within a Water Working Group, the GT WASH. Closely connected to international coordination mechanisms, its purpose is to better respond to urgent needs and “save lives.”
1. The importance of water and sanitation in humanitarian action
Access to safe drinking water and sanitation is a vital priority in humanitarian action. In crisis contexts — whether related to conflict, natural disasters, or epidemics that cause massive population displacement — drinking water is indispensable every day and helps prevent waterborne diseases like cholera.
Yet allocated resources remain largely insufficient. In 2024, the United Nations (OCHA) estimated global humanitarian needs at $44.7 billion, including $3 billion specifically for water, hygiene, and sanitation needs.
However, only 30% of these water needs were funded, and this figure averages only 4% over the past decade. These numbers illustrate an alarming reality: one of the most essential needs is among the least funded.
At the same time, the United States alone has provided 42% of global humanitarian funding until early 2025, highlighting the sector’s dependence on a small number of donors and the urgent need to diversify funding sources.
Without proper sanitation systems, the risk of waterborne diseases like cholera or dysentery rises dramatically, leading to high mortality rates, especially among children under five.Water and sanitation are not merely essential needs — they are prerequisites for any effective humanitarian response, saving lives, stabilizing living conditions for populations in danger, and laying the groundwork for development as soon as possible.
Yet humanitarian aid in water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) remains underfunded.
2. The response of the Water Working Group (GT WASH), its purpose and members
In this context of crisis and urgency, water-focused humanitarian actors in France created the GT WASH. This group serves as a vital platform for dialogue, coordination, and innovation among humanitarian WASH actors.
It brings together about fifty members: mainly NGOs, but also companies, foundations, micro-consultancies, and training centers. On average, around fifteen participants join its quarterly meetings.
The GT is chaired by David Poinard (Veolia Foundation) and coordinated by Solène Pradat-Paz from the French Water Partnership (PFE). It benefits from the support of the PFE secretariat and the Veolia Foundation team. This collaborative approach ensures continuity and organized work, while also ensuring active representation in international bodies: the PFE is both a member of the Global WASH Cluster (GWC) — relaying information between the global cluster coordination and GT WASH — and of the WASH Road Map (WRM), where it leads initiative 8 dedicated to humanitarian advocacy.
At the June 13, 2025 meeting, major topics were discussed, including the “humanitarian reset” of the UN system, maintaining the key functions of the WASH cluster, partnerships with the private sector, and future governance through country-level platforms. Baptiste Lecuyot (Solidarités International), a member of the GWC’s Strategic Advisory Group (SAG), presented the global WASH cluster’s 2025 priorities.
The GT WASH is also part of an ongoing innovation approach launched in January 2025 at the Humanitarian WASH Workshops (https://defishumanitaires.com/2025/02/25/ateliers-wash-de-lhumanitaire-2025/). These focused on waste, energy, and water themes. Following these discussions, ACF (Action Against Hunger) and the PFE will launch in September 2025 a series of bilingual (French-English) technical webinars, aligned with the GT meeting dates, to explore specific topics with experts (desalination, reverse osmosis, solar pumping, circularity, waste reduction, etc.). The aim is to build technical capacity and foster cross-sector exchanges.
Among notable initiatives shared was the Right2Grow program, run in six countries (Uganda, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Mali, Burkina Faso, Bangladesh) with support from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Presented by ACF, it focuses on civil society strengthening, localizing action, participatory budgeting, and government accountability for water and nutrition. The approach is adaptive, inclusive, and community-centered. A 300-page learning catalogue summarizing five years of experience has been published to support replication in other contexts.
The GT WASH also promotes sector-wide knowledge sharing initiatives such as the Emergency Environmental Health Forum (EEHF) — the only conference entirely dedicated to the intersection of WASH and humanitarian health — and the creation of the WASH Hub (led by the German Toilet Organization), a resource, training, and expertise platform including an AI component (WASH IA developed by Baobabtech). Upcoming events for GT members include the “Right to Drinking Water” conference (July 8–9 in Toulouse) and World Water Week in Stockholm (August 24–28), with dedicated sessions on humanitarian water and sanitation.
Through coordination and innovation, the GT WASH plays a key role in supporting and strengthening this collective momentum, fully aligned with the objectives and priorities of the second version of the WASH Road Map (under finalization), which structures advocacy to address the growing humanitarian challenges in water, sanitation, and hygiene.
3. Advocacy through the second WASH Road Map version (ahead of the next major UN water milestones in 2026)
Humanitarian actors came together to develop and implement the WASH Road Map 2025. This initiative responds to the rising humanitarian needs in WASH, worsened by protracted conflicts, climate change, and increasing politicization of aid. Coordinated by the WRM’s “Advocacy & Financing” initiative, it is led by ACF, the PFE, and UNICEF (secretariat by ACF), supported by 20 committed members — including international NGOs, UN agencies, academic institutions, and country representatives — and a seed fund supported by Switzerland (SDC). The number of signatories keeps growing, now reaching 230 organizations and 4 UN Member States, including France.
Structured around four pillars — knowledge management, capacity development, coordination and partnerships, and resource mobilization — the Road Map aims to adapt WASH responses to today’s challenges. It underpins the Call to Action 2025, a renewed call acknowledging the evolution of the global humanitarian ecosystem, worrying funding declines, and needed progress in global water governance.
The Call to Action 2025 focuses on five priority messages:
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Reaffirm respect for humanitarian principles by all actors;
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Increase support to the WASH sector, with special attention to humanitarian needs;
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Systematically target WASH efforts to the areas where population risks and needs are most critical;
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Call for effective implementation of international humanitarian law (IHL), particularly protecting WASH infrastructure and personnel;
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Strengthen and sustain global water governance to ensure the durability of responses and achievement of SDG 6 — universal access to safe drinking water by 2030.
Through this Call to Action 2025, signatories urge governments to endorse and promote this strategic approach, including:
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Targeting interventions to populations living in fragile, conflict- and violence-affected (FCV) situations, often left out of public policies and global agendas;
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Increasing dedicated humanitarian WASH funding to ensure rapid, adequate, and sustainable responses;
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Building resilient services capable of withstanding multiple crises, through stronger collaboration between humanitarian and development actors;
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Actively protecting WASH infrastructure and personnel, as per UN Security Council Resolution 2573 (2021);
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Supporting the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Water to anchor water firmly on the global political agenda and to prepare effectively for the 2026 UN Water Conference, within the framework of the SDGs (2015–2030).
The Call to Action 2025 aims to be launched in July–August 2025, seeking formal support from the GWC SAG, more signatories (especially from the Global South), alignment of advocacy strategies across WASH actors (including the GWC), and sustainable funding for the WRM advocacy initiative.
The WASH Road Map 2025 is therefore not just a technical tool: it represents collective mobilization for strong, coordinated, and inclusive international commitment — essential to address the global water crisis and build WASH services that protect life, health, and dignity for the most vulnerable.
Conclusion
Faced with rising humanitarian needs and declining humanitarian and development funding, water-focused humanitarian actors must mobilize to make the December 2026 UN World Conference in New York a moment of renewed commitment and initiative.
The best way to prepare for this conference and react to funding declines is to join forces to drive synergy, innovation, and resource pooling — to do better together. That is what the GT WASH is doing.
Esther de Montchalin
Esther de Montchalin is a master’s student in Political Science, specializing in Development and Humanitarian Action, at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. She is currently the assistant to the founder of Solidarités International and Défis Humanitaires, Mr. Alain Boinet.
Particularly interested in global health issues, access to water, and the fight against malnutrition, she focuses her research on major contemporary humanitarian challenges and the difficulties faced by vulnerable populations in crisis contexts.
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