Established in 1966, World Vision Australia (WVA) is part of the World Vision international federated network, housing decades of development experience. Working with country offices, WVA draws upon strong grassroots connections and collaborates with stakeholders to improve lives of the most vulnerable in target communities. In 2015 WVA supported a $286 million project portfolio, implemented across 55 countries, including $12.7 million for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programs. WVA?s expertise in water management has been applied across subsectors including water supply, irrigation, watershed management, and hydropower, with consistent emphasis on institutional capacity building. For example, in Sri Lanka and Solomon Islands, WVA has supported improved performance of water councils through building capacity in the use of technology for mapping water supply networks. This has improved operational and financial decision-making, leading to optimised maintenance schedules, improved customer communications, and increased council revenue. In Zimbabwe and Indonesia, WVA has supported local councils on water policy, planning, regulation, infrastructure, and investment to improve water utility performance, infrastructure planning, and ground water management. This has resulted in better management of water supply demands, water rationing, and revenue collection. In Solomon Islands, WVA has collaborated with national and local bodies on a legislative framework covering water availability and quality issues in an effort to resolve issues in Honiara. WVA’s work across water management draws upon expertise in gender, disability, and social accountability to ensure equitable participation and benefit by vulnerable groups, and capability in natural resource management and disaster risk reduction to ensure environmental sustainability.
• Community development: enhancing community capacity and linkages with relevant stakeholders.
• Integrated WASH: building capacity for service delivery and behaviour change.
• Natural resource management: covering use of water, land, and trees.
• Urban programming: ensuring equitable and sustainable services and undertaking research.
• Gender: ensuring equitable participation and program outcomes for women and men.
• Disaster risk reduction: increasing community and institutional preparedness and capacity.
• Governance and social accountability: facilitating engagement between citizens and government.
• Disability inclusion: ensuring participation, access, and equitable outcomes.
• Monitoring & Evaluation: for quality assurance, program improvement, and learning.
• Project management: ensuring effective, efficient and timely delivery of outputs.