ISF-UTS, Plan International Australia (PIA), Yayasan Plan International Indonesia (YPII) and WaterAid Timor-Leste (WATL) hosted a virtual Learning Event on 2 – 4 June 2021. This event was an opportunity for research, civil society organisation and government partners to share knowledge from the ‘Climate Change Response for Inclusive WASH’ research and further identify pathways to achieve impact.

The event was well-attended by around 50 participants from 35 organisations from Indonesia, Timor-Leste and Australia. Participants living with hearing impairments were supported to contribute to the discussion with sign language interpretation in Indonesian language. A disabled people’s organisation member, Feri, shared the importance of including people living with disabilities in discussions about climate-resilient inclusive WASH and hearing everyone’s voices.

YPII and WATL shared lessons learned from implementing climate change assessment activities in the Water for Women project areas. They also shared their learning on gender transformation and social inclusion, in relation to climate-sensitive WASH programming. Novika Noerdiyanti (Gender and Social Inclusion Project Specialist, YPII) stated, “We want stakeholders and government to be able to build from the good (inclusive) practices from Plan Indonesia”.

Event participants participated in small group discussions to develop key messages to address impacts of climate change on inclusive WASH in policy, programming and practices. From these key messages, ways to influence governments, WASH sector practitioners and climate change actors were discussed.

Maria Yasinta (Health Department) shared that in Manggarai district, Indonesia, they have started to have a discussion on how to fulfil the health and sanitation needs of people with disabilities in the future. She said “this research can serve as input for us to consider how climate issues affect people’s needs, so that sanitation needs can be met all year-round”.

Please see the Virtual Learning Event Report for more details.