Pacific Community Water Management plus (PACWAM+) – August Fiji Stakeholder Workshops

Recently, the Pacific Community Water Management plus (PACWAM+) research team conducted two stakeholder workshops at the University of the South Pacific Fiji.

In the first workshop, researchers from IWC and USP co-presented results from the PaCWaM applied research project – undertaken in Fiji and Solomon Islands  – and introduced some of the community water management (CWM) plus “tools” that have been co-developed over the past 4 years. For the second workshop Dr Regina Souter presented the results of related research focused on water conservation and behaviour change in Fiji.

The CWM tools were co-developed and piloted with local researchers and implementers in Fiji and Solomon Islands. CWM+ tools shared with stakeholders include:

1. Strong water Committee and strong WASH communities
2. Water is everybody’s business
3. Leveraging Social networks
4. Modified water safety Planning
   CWSIP: Community Based Water Security Improvement Planning
   DWSSP: Drinking Water Safety and Security Planning
5. Water Committee Backstopping

Key stakeholders included the Water Authority of Fiji, Ministry of Health and Medical Services, Ministry of Minerals and Resources, Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Live & Learn, Plan International, Wildlife Conservation Society, Field Ready, University of the South Pacific, PCDF, WISH, RISE and the Asian Development Bank.  There was constructive discussion about the CWM tools and the relevance and usefulness of the research.

The Water for Women funded PACWAM+ project has explored how CSOs and governments can better enable rural community water management in the Pacific region to improve SDG6 outcomes, with a focus on community water management ‘plus’ practices.

Specifically, the project undertook formative research on rural community water management across diverse community contexts to learn about which community governance, engagement, and support features are most aligned with inclusive, integrated and resilient SDG6, including WASH outcomes.

Subsequently, the project team co-developed and piloted approaches and tools that CSOs/governments can use to complement their existing approaches through strengthening their engagement with and mobilisation of communities and water committees.

Learn more about the project and discover PACWAM+ tools via the project webpage.