Purpose

Water is essential for life. Everything we hold dear – our health and well-being, the ecosystems that support us, the economies we work to build, and the political stability of our communities and societies – depends on it.

We are inspired by the vision of a world that has healthy and resilient ecosystems, sustainable economies and social justice. A world where people enjoy good health and well-being and are able to realise a desired quality of life.

We believe our purpose is to change the current thinking about water, about how we use it and how we manage it, in order to help achieve this vision.

Our purpose

Water. Everything we hold dear – our health and well-being, the ecosystems that support us, the economies we work to build, the political stability of our communities and societies – depends on it.

However, demand for water often exceeds what is available and accessible to human communities and populations, despite the fact that 71% of our planet is covered by water. Such vulnerability to water scarcity and insecurity is increasing because of the effects of climate change and population growth. Globally, hundreds of millions of people struggle to access the quantity and quality of water they need for safe drinking, hygiene and sanitation because of physical water scarcity, and a lack of stable and reliable water management systems. While there has been great progress in reaching the most vulnerable, poor governance and lack of accountable means good progress is often short lived. As services break and fail, service levels slip backwards.

And hundreds of millions more are increasingly exposed to risks of catastrophic flooding as rainfall patterns change intensity, our communities grow and we clear vegetation from river basins to make space for housing and agriculture, removing their ability to attenuate variations in rainfall and flash flows.

Where water becomes scarce for human uses, pressures emerge and trade-offs are made which threaten the availability and flows required to support ecosystem health in waterways and coastal areas. Such pressures and trade-offs risk the degradation of our surrounding and supporting ecologies, putting at risk the services we gain from them, and the livelihoods and economic activities that rely upon them. And where floods occur we are finding water quality is deteriorating as our catchments become less resilient and lose function.

Where does the International WaterCentre fit?

We are inspired by the vision of a world that has healthy and resilient ecosystems, sustainable economies and social justice. A world where people enjoy good health and well-being and are able to realise a desired quality of life. To help achieve this, we strive to change the way people think about and address complex water management and sustainable development issues, to challenge business as usual, to inspire change.

The IWC was founded with the vision of harnessing the diverse expertise of the world’s leading water professionals, to educate and empower individuals, communities and organisations, and to build their capacity to respond to water challenges in innovative ways.

Theory of change

A theory of change is a comprehensive description of how and why a desired change is expected to happen in a particular context. It focuses on mapping out what a program or change initiative does and how this leads to a desired impact goal, or multiple goals, being achieved.

All of our activities are guided by our theory of change, to ensure our actions lead to outcomes that deliver meaningful impact. We do this by first identifying the desired long-term impact goals, and then working backwards from these impact goals to identify all the outcomes that must be in place for the impact goals to occur.

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