Eligibility:

• What: ChangeMaker initiatives should be about decisions involving water that have contributed to building resilience to climate change.
• Who: All organisations, entities, and individuals associated with the public, private, and non-profit sector are eligible to submit their ChangeMaker initiative. Submitters need to be involved in the initiative described or have the agreement of those involved in order to submit. If you have more than one experience to share, you may: Multiple submissions are welcome.
• Where: Initiatives can be from anywhere in the world.
• When: Initiatives must be either ongoing or concluded within the last five (5) years
• Verification: When submitting your story, you must point to a contact in your country who can verify the existence of your organization or group. The verification may be informal but would need to involve the name and email address of the verifier.
• Exclusion: Staff employed by GWPO or any of the GWP Regional Secretariats, or their direct relatives (partners, children, parents) are not eligible to submit a ChangeMakers experience, nor are members of GWP’s GLOBAL Steering Committee or GLOBAL Technical Committee.

Please note:

• Many Languages work: Submissions are accepted in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.  We do work, however, in English and we will therefore use publicly available online translation tools to convert non-English submissions into English.
• Get ahead of the final date: We recommend that submissions be uploaded ahead of the final date given that our system may experience instability when overloaded.
• Quantify where you can:  Submitters are encouraged to quantify results and include data that demonstrates positive impacts in their submissions.
• Verficiation: Submissions will undergo a verification process using the contact person provided.

The extent to which the initiative has contributed to climate resilience – seen through one or more dimensions such as: changes to people’s lives, the physical environment, institutional structures and routines, financial flows, behaviours and livelihoods, perceptions and mental models. 

The extent to which the initiative has pushed the boundary beyond “business as usual” and broken down the inertia of processes or systems that have prevented decisions to be taken and action to move forward.  The adaptability of the team and initiative when faced with resistance and the strategies used to overcome them. And the extent to which the change created will continue or has continued beyond expectations.

The extent to which the initiative has been mindful in using learning to improve and to bring about the changes intended.  This may include various learning approaches, such as learning from a crisis or from failure; it may also be about good use of learning tools, programs, or techniques used to facilitate learning in group processes or to arrive at decisions.

The extent to which the initiative has involved and mobilized others to achieve success, how it worked in collaboration with others, how shared goals were built with others.  Collaboration may be about including those that would help push forward the initiative’s goals and those that would benefit from the initiative, including stakeholders who would more often be excluded from such work.

You will be a creator of insights that drive better water decisions.  We will invite Semi-Finalists to collaborate on distilling lessons from their experiences.  Finalists’ experiences will be featured on the Global Water Partnership’s online  ToolBox – able to explore collaboration with other water champions from across the globe. Finalists will be invited to collaborate in shaping subsequent Water ChangeMaker Awards.

You will be an ambassador for your initiative. Each Finalist will be invited to the UN Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP 26) in Glasgow, Scotland (TBD).  We will sponsor your trip where you will participate in the Awards Ceremony and where your work will be featured in media channels.  You will participate in events to celebrate and share your award-winning experience.