USAID’s Revised Water and Conflict Toolkit

Mar 22, 2023 | Ekta Patel and Erika Weinthal
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USAID’s recent revision of its Water and Conflict Toolkit provides guidance on how water practitioners can incorporate conflict-sensitivity into water programming to improve the effectiveness of development assistance while mitigating conflict risks. First published in 2014, the toolkit details the ways in which water management intersects with conflict, cooperation, and peacebuilding.

Water’s integral role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—and, in particular, SDG 6’s call for universal access to clean water and sanitation for everyone by 2030—makes it imperative for the humanitarian and development communities to design stronger, more conflict-sensitive water interventions in fragile and conflict-affected areas.    

A large part of the new toolkit showcases USAID activities that demonstrate best practices in managing conflicts over water. The aim is to help implementing partners anticipate interactions between water and conflict risks in diverse local contexts. The toolkit divides these cases into three buckets—water programming related to conflict prevention, water programming in conflict-affected contexts, and water programming related to stabilization and peacebuilding—though these specific instances are not mutually exclusive.