Regional Partnership to Achieve Water Security: The Role of the UNESCO Water Family in Asia and the Pacific

In response to the growing need to cope with very large water challenges, the role of intergovernmental organisations and the regional partnerships they facilitate have become increasingly crucial to achieve water security, particularly in Asia and the Pacific, which is highly vulnerable to water insecurity and climate change. This chapter introduces the role of intergovernmental and scientific regional partnerships and collaborative mechanisms for water security and sustainability from the perspective of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (IHP). It takes stock of the IHP through a brief review of the programme’s history and a cross-section of current activities and trends observed in Asia and the Pacific. In this way, a trajectory is traced from the programme’s beginnings as an effort focused on the consolidation of hydrology as a scientific discipline into a broad platform designed to deliver “science for society” in pursuit of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals. Finally, the chapter discusses how the emergence of the extended IHP network, known as the UNESCO Water Family, has played a role in ensuring the continued growth in scope and reach of the IHP during a period of financial constraints and has provided an indication of a more diverse, complex, and decentralized delivery mechanism that likely plays a key role in IHP’s future.