Water resilience in Malawi’s draft National Adaptation Plan

Producing more food despite erratic rainfall, keeping the lights on when most energy comes from hydropower, and expanding access to clean water and sanitation—all depend on water. Water, therefore, sits at the heart of Malawi’s adaptation and resilience agenda.

As Malawi finalizes its updated National Adaptation Plan (NAP) ahead of COP30 in Brazil, the draft version now features a strengthened set of indicators for the water sector that explicitly capture climate resilience, adaptive governance, and inclusivity, moving beyond a narrow focus on infrastructure and service delivery.

Farm worker adjusts a sprinkler irrigation pipe in a maize field. Lisungwi farm, Malawi. Photo credit: Melissa Cooperman/IFPRI

This milestone was achieved between August and October 2025, when the Ministry of Water and Sanitation (MoWS), working with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Climate Change (MoNRCC) and the National Planning Commission (NPC), successfully integrated technical inputs from the Water Resilience Tracker (WRT) into the NAP indicator framework. The process was supported through the Just Transitions for Water Security (JTWS) programme, during two technical sessions held in Mangochi (7 October) and Lilongwe (16 October 2025).

The revised indicator framework now includes baselines and targets for many of the new measures, aligning closely with both the Water Resilience Tracker tool and the MoWS Strategic Plan. This integration is a significant policy advance: it mainstreams water-resilience metrics within Malawi’s national climate-planning architecture and enables adaptation progress to be measured, reported, and financed using credible, evidence-based indicators.

The enhanced NAP provides a foundation for stronger cross-sectoral coordination, ensuring that the water sector contributes meaningfully to Malawi’s forthcoming NDC 3.0 and to the Global Goal on Adaptation.

This achievement was made possible through the concerted support of JTWS partners. IWMI, AGWA, Arup, and Deltares provided technical design and methodological guidance on indicator development, while Water Witness International contributed through the Fair Water Footprints initiative. Together with the Government of Malawi, these partners helped deliver the revised water-sector indicators endorsed by MoWS on 16 October 2025—marking a clear, nationally owned outcome of the JTWS programme in Malawi.