Including AWS Water Stewardship in Jurisdictional Approaches

Indonesia, although a water-rich country, is experiencing increasing water stress and competition over water, due to rapid economic development, population growth and the impacts of climate change. To address these growing water challenges, there is a need to scale-up action on sustainability at the jurisdictional level (government-defined administrative boundaries). This can lead to private sector actions being better aligned with and embedded within governmental programmes and planning to support sustainability targets at jurisdictional level. Multiple sustainability standard schemes have already started developing and piloting jurisdictional approaches, such as the Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) piloting its Jurisdictional Approach for Certification, the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH) piloting a market-based approach SourceUp, and Lingkar Temu Kabupaten Lestari (LTKL) implementing the Regional Competitiveness Framework (RCF) in multiple districts in Indonesia.

To address these growing water challenges and the need to embed water better into jurisdictional planning, AWS and LTKL Secretariat collaborated in a two-year project of ‘Boosting sustainability practice and performance at the landscape level through good water stewardship’ developing a strategic document called Strengthening Water Stewardship at the Jurisdictional Level. 

The strategic document sets out to provide:

• An overview of overlaps and gaps between the LTKL Regional Competitiveness Framework (RCF) and the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) Standard V2.0, and opportunities to further strengthen water stewardship to support district government performance on water.
• Insights for private sector stakeholders on how AWS certified sites can support district government sustainability performance related to water.
• Recommendations on how to strengthen water stewardship performance as part of the Means of Verification, Data Source and Regulatory Basis of RCF.

The findings presented in the report aim to inform LTKL and its district members and open opportunities for a future jurisdictional or landscape strategy by the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS).

This report was developed in close consultation and collaboration with the LTKL secretariat and key members of the Centre of Agriculture Excellence (CoAE) in Musi Banyuasin in South Sumatra (Indonesia). This member district of LTKL was identified as a pilot district for seeking opportunities due to the vast water-related challenges related to peatlands, forest fires and deforestation. To be able to gain full understanding of good water stewardship, the AWS Standard and the intention and requirements of its indicators, download AWS Standard and Guidance at: https://a4ws.org/the-aws-standard-2-0/ 

Download the summary document and please contact AWS to get access to the full document.  

Contact (Mr) Fany Wedahuditama: fany@ws-indonesia.org for more information and further collaboration.

This document is part of a set of reports resulting from the “Boosting Sustainability Practice and Performance at Landscape Level through Good Water Stewardship” project. It was developed by Yayasan Aliansi Wali Sumber Daya Indonesia (Yayasan AWS Indonesia) and the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS), in collaboration with the LTKL Secretariat. This project was possible thanks to a grant from the ISEAL Innovations Fund which is supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO.