In recent years, water is increasingly recognized as an important indicator of climate urgency and an enabler for sustainable development, especially in urban areas because of rapid urbanisation.
Moreover, the widespread underfunding of early project development activities results in a growing difficulty to fill the pipeline of infrastructure project investments by national and international financiers. While (climate) financing availability for project implementation is on the rise, the
investments in the process for project conceptualisation, identification and development, based on a sound strategy for long term urban climate adaptation, are still widely lacking.
The Water as Leverage programme has been developed to accelerate climate change adaptation by aiming to generate projects that address the urgent water and climate adaptation needs in cities, and strategically foster global urban water resilience initiatives, and accelerate climate action.