Water+ 2020 Retrospective Report

This report is a collection of short briefs that reflect learnings from across CARE’s water+ work in 2020. These briefs describe efforts to strengthen conditions and capacities – among government, communities, and service providers - for sustainable and equitable provision of water, sanitation, and hygiene services. Together, these briefs reflect CARE’s emphasis on strengthening WASH systems, and the governance, accountability, investment and learning essential to sustain WASH services.

2020 was marked by a large-scale public health crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic was an inescapable context and impacted our programs in various ways. It halted or limited program and community engagement during lockdowns, but also highlighted the importance of WASH in combatting COVID-19 and drew attention to systemic inequities. As CARE shifted to emergency response, more than 69 of CARE’s country offices implemented WASH for COVID-19 prevention, impacting WASH services for more than 12 million people through emergency or development WASH programs. CARE’s programs across sectors incorporated handwashing and hygiene as COVID-19 prevention and response.

In 2020, CARE reflected on implementation and impact of our 2020 Program Strategy, and outlined a Vision 2030 which defines our principles, priorities, and expected impact over the next ten years. During this exercise, we re-evaluated the pillars of our water-related work and intersections with gender equality, food, health, climate, and resilience. We also expanded our global leadership spaces to include CARE Peru – an effort to bring a more diverse set of decision-makers to the Water Team and draw on decades of experience in water resources management and protection in Peru and the Latin America region.