Applying a Social Inclusion Lens to the Transboundary Water Context Cooperation in International Waters in Africa Tool

Overview & Synopsis

At the core of the World Bank Group’s development mandate is a commitment to protect those who are most vulnerable so that everyone – regardless of their gender, race, religion, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, or disability – can benefit from development. The Cooperation in International Waters in Africa (CIWA) is a World Bank program that provides support to address constraints to cooperative management and development of transboundary waters in sub-Saharan Africa. CIWA is committed to fostering an inclusive approach to the programming it supports. Concretely, CIWA wants to ensure that stakeholders directly involved with CIWA projects have sufficient understanding and capacity to create opportunities to promote equality and inclusion for women and men in all their diversities and sources of vulnerability within the transboundary water context. CIWA has therefore developed a tool kit specifically targeted to social development and related experts working to provide technical expertise on the development and implementation of CIWA programming at the institutional and project level. Working together with CIWA teams, it provides significant detail to assist experts to understand the critical steps they can take to facilitate the integration of social inclusion considerations throughout the project cycle. This note has been developed to provide an overview to CIWA staff members and partners of some of the main steps that can be taken so they can play a support role in the development and implementation of socially-inclusive programs within the transboundary water context at the project and institutional level.