From Baku to bankable. How FCDO and IWMI are turning pilots into investment opportunities with international financial institutions in fragile contexts. As the global funding landscape shifts and pilot projects mature, a new challenge emerges: how do successful resilience interventions move from small-scale testing to nationally financed programs? For the United Kingdom's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), the Islamic Development Bank Group (IsDB) Annual Meetings and Resilience Dialogues in Baku, Azerbaijan provided an opportunity to test a shared answer to this question. IWMI has led several projects funded by UK International Development that are reaching maturity and looking for pathways to scale. Al Murunah pilots resilient nature-based water solutions (RNBWS) for water and food security in agricultural communities of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine. Al Murunah+, supports Al Murunah by delivering household- and community-level resilience-building to promote positive gender norms and support the uptake and sustainability of climate adaptation interventions. Jahez builds climate-ready refugee-hosting communities in Jordan through scalable impact-based weather and climate information systems, community-based anticipatory action and RNBWS for disaster risk reduction. Wiqaya pilots RNBWS to mitigate sand and dust storm generation and improve livelihoods equitably in southern Iraq and scale mitigation efforts through capability building, planning and dialogue to leverage national and regional climate finance. As these pilots near completion, and with clear proof of concept established, International Water Management Institute is exploring how to scale the partnerships and evidence-based approaches to cement a legacy that continues to build resilience in fragile contexts. This was the reason IWMI and the FCDO travelled to Baku together, as one delegation, with IWMI serving as the technical and knowledge arm of the FCDO team. Why the Resilience Dialogues matter. As part of their Annual Meetings, IsDB hosted a two-day Resilience Dialogue, which stood out as an excellent opportunity for International Water Management Institute. Ministers, multilateral development banks (MDBs), UN agencies and development partners participated in a South-led discussion on what is required to improve crisis response and support investable resilience programming. Across roundtables on the Sahel, Syria and Horn of Africa, and the launch of IsDB's new "3R Facility" - response, recovery and resilience - two messages rang out clearly: capital is increasingly available, but there remains a shortage of bankable, conflict-sensitive and technically sound projects; and investments in water systems can provide a critical entry point for climate resilience, food security and economic recovery, yet many lack the evidence base and design needed to attract large-scale financing. This gap is exactly where IWMI's projects sit. From evidence to a legacy that scales. Together, IWMI and the FCDO aim to distil outputs and learnings from these projects into synthesized and investment-ready intervention bundles and implementation models that governments, development banks and financiers can adopt, adapt and scale in other fragile and conflict-affected settings. This provides MDBs and climate financiers robust evidence and an implementation blueprint, enabling proven water-centred resilience investments to begin from an advanced starting point. A joint offer, built for new platforms and pipelines. In roundtables and bilateral meetings at Baku, International Water Management Institute tested a shared proposition: whether FCDO's international climate finance, policy, and partnership and convening power, paired with IWMI's research for development and conflict-sensitive design, could create opportunities for development finance institutions to turn resilience priorities into investment-ready pipelines. This offer arrives at the right moment for recent and emerging South-led platforms such as the Baku Hub, IsDB's 3R facility and the Riyadh Global Drought Resilience Partnership. Each requires the kind of investment-ready and rigorously prepared projects that learnings and approaches from projects like ours can inform. Aligning with national and regional ambitions. This work ties together national development and climate adaptation plans, the UK's International Climate Finance Strategy and IWMI's Country and Regional Strategic Roadmaps. Water is a foundational platform globally for food security, jobs and peace. This is the case across Chad and the Sahel, for Syria's early recovery, in Sudan's reconstruction, for Yemen's dam-linked livelihoods and for disaster preparedness in the Horn of Africa. Its engagement in Baku reinforced how IWMI's projects align with these national visions, and how they can be adapted and scaled through local leadership and regional institutions. Looking ahead, together. Baku confirmed something International Water Management Institute already believed: FCDO and IWMI are stronger working together. As its UK International Development funded pilots mature, its shared task is to make sure their evidence and models inform the next investments for high-impact development. It marks a shift in the FCDO-IWMI collaboration: from successful implementation, through strategic reflection, to a future where water security drives inclusive, resilient development at scale. International Water Management Institute leave Baku with a clear path forward and a renewed conviction that when diplomacy, financing, policy, and applied research for development move together and are anchored in local realities, evidence, and knowledge, International Water Management Institute respond to crises and build resilient systems with communities that endure. The UK's International Climate Finance Strategy includes two relevant priorities: mobilizing finance at scale for climate and nature outcomes and accelerating a transition to climate-resilient communities, economies and ecosystems. To deliver on these priorities, its next chapter is not just about sharing lessons; it is to ensure that evidence generated in these projects shapes the next generation of climate resilience investments. Baku demonstrated that demand exists. The task is now to translate evidence into pipelines, pipelines into finance and finance into resilient systems that can better withstand future shocks. International Water Management Institute is excited for what comes next. IWMI and the FCDO will continue turning knowledge into action - driving bankable, impactful investments. Mitchell McTough is a researcher on Water, Conflicts and Resilience at IWMI; Stephen Fragaszy is a researcher and Al Murunah project leader at IWMI, Ranoja Dickowita is an intern with the Water, Climate Change and Resilience team at IWMI; Sawsan Gharaibeh is a regional researcher on Gender and Social Inclusion at IWMI; Vidhisha Samarasekara is the strategic program director on Water, Climate Change and Resilience at IWMI; Katya Nell is the deputy team lead and FCAS Climate Adviser for the MENA Energy, Climate and Environment Team at FCDO; Serena Bashal is the regional lead (Gulf States and Yemen) for MENA Energy, Climate and Environment Team at FCDO.

IWMI launches ENSO Outlook to turn El Niño forecasts into anticipatory action. The reliability of modern climate predictions presents a window of opportunity in which to act to prevent the worst impacts from the phenomenon. July 22, 2026 | By IWMI On June 18, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) launched the ENSO Outlook tool at the 2026 El Niño Webinar, to support nations prepare for the coming El Niño challenges. Capable of sophisticated analysis, the ENSO Outlook brings together data on a host of El Niño climate signals - from rainfall and soil moisture to vegetation health - and uses artificial intelligence to predict what those signals will mean for water resources, agriculture, food systems and livelihoods. It presents data on scales from global to national, enabling governments to take targeted preparatory actions to unlock farming services, insurance, finance and more. With scientists forecasting that El Niño will threaten crops and livestock through severe droughts and erratic rainfall from now until early 2027, concerns over food security are growing. East and Southern Africa are likely to be hardest hit as they face below-average rains, flooding and extreme heat across different areas that could intersect with existing vulnerabilities - such as conflict, high fuel and fertilizer prices, and weak recovery from prior weather shocks. Also likely to be affected are Latin America and the Caribbean, and South and Southeast Asia. While this is gravely worrying, the reliability of modern climate predictions presents a window of opportunity in which to act to prevent the worst impacts from the phenomenon - which is the warm phase of the naturally occurring El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern. El Niño's well-established influence on rainfall can be used to understand likely impacts on crop yields, livestock, fisheries and food security. When combined with data on communities' existing vulnerabilities this can help form the basis for effective anticipatory action. Water availability underpins food security, so using short- and medium-range forecasts to prepare at multiple levels, for disruption to water supplies is vital. For farmers, this could look like making a timely switch from growing water-intensive rice to less thirsty maize or millet, and could be the difference between crop failure or survival during a period of extreme drought. Being informed of such events in advance can ensure ministries are prepared for compound impacts that ripple across crop production, food prices, market volatility, health and more. 'El Niño is not just a climate issue, it's a global risk multiplier that can influence rainfall, drought, flood, heat stress, crop production, water availability, food security and livelihoods in vulnerable regions,' warns Giriraj Amarnath, research group leader on Water Data for Climate Resilience and principal researcher on Disaster Risk Management and Climate Resilience at IWMI. While cereals are often the focus of food security, the potential impacts of El Niño on livestock, fisheries and aquaculture must not be overlooked. Depleted animal and aquatic foods often result in the first cuts in nutrition and income for poor families but such losses tend to be undercounted in response planning. For example, small-scale fisheries generate roughly 40% of the world's wild-caught fish and supply nutrients to over 2.3 billion people. One protective tool in this regard is satellite-based livestock and fisheries insurance, where earth-observation data is used to help verify claims. However, this requires parallel social protection schemes to ensure households remain able to pay the premiums. Applying a 'One Health' approach - which aims to balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems - is also valuable. With extreme weather potentially affecting animals' immunity, this might involve monitoring livestock for disease and establishing vaccination programs where required. Many countries expected to be hit hard by the evolving El Niño are highly fragile and are often crisis hotspots. For such locations, it is not enough to simply forecast climate risks, as understanding is needed of how weather shocks interact with existing conflict, weak institutions and food insecurity. Such challenging contexts call for triangulating climate and non-climate datasets to pinpoint hotspots for action; tailoring science to respond to policymakers' needs; and investing in partnerships to build trust at the local level. As the world grapples with an evolving El Niño, understanding the potential impacts and taking anticipatory action is critical. IWMI's ENSO Outlook helps countries translate climate forecasts into early action, supporting practical decisions for food, land and water systems, protecting both food security and livelihoods.

Early farmer impressions from the Water & Soil Accelerator program in Central Malawi. WASA is helping Central Malawi's farmers turn soil and water challenges into practical climate resilience through science, demonstration plots and farmer-led choices for lasting harvests. July 16, 2026 For many smallholder farmers in Central Malawi, the challenge is no longer only about producing more but about producing under increasingly difficult conditions. From unpredictable rainy seasons, declining soil fertility, rising input costs, and dry spells that can reduce crop performance even when farmers have done everything right. In this context, the Water & Soil Accelerator (WASA) Program is offering a glimpse into why soil and water management must be treated as a core part of climate resilience. Implemented by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) in partnership with CIMMYT, and other partners, WASA aims to accelerate the adoption of climate-smart soil and water management practices among smallholder farmers in Zambia and Malawi. In Central Malawi, the program's mega demonstrations are testing and showcasing practical options for Conservation Agriculture (CA), focusing on minimum soil disturbance, crop residue retention, crop diversification, and maize varietal assessment. The work builds on CIMMYT's more than two decades of research and promotion of CA across Southern Africa. Over the years, CIMMYT and partners have generated evidence that practices such as reduced tillage, residue retention, crop rotations, intercropping, and improved varieties can contribute to better soil structure, increased water infiltration, reduced erosion, and more stable yields under variable rainfall. This experience provides an important scientific foundation for WASA as it enters a new phase of implementation, adaptation, and farmer learning. CIMMYT's role in the consortium includes developing field implementation protocols, coordinating agronomic research, strengthening partner capacity, and supporting the generation of field-based evidence. In the first year, this has been particularly important as the credibility of the demonstrations depends on the quality of site selection, plot demarcation, trial layout, crop management, and data collection. The Training of Trainers adopted a participatory co-learning approach, combining technical sessions, field demonstrations, and hands-on practice. Field teams worked through nine treatment configurations, including maize varietal comparisons, maize-groundnut and maize-cowpea intercrops, maize-legume rotations, and double- and four-row strip cropping systems. For many participants, strip cropping was a new concept, requiring careful discussion on spatial arrangement, fertilizer placement, crop interactions, and the type of data to be collected, including yield, biomass, residue cover, and labour use. "For these technologies to be useful beyond the demonstration plot, the people implementing them must understand the science and the field reality," said Dr Blessing Mhlanga, CIMMYT Cropping Systems Agronomist (Associate Scientist). "The co-learning approach allows researchers, field staff, and farmers to engage practically with the treatments, ask questions, and build confidence in practices that can be adapted to local conditions." Early observations from Central Malawi show encouraging levels of farmer interest and acceptance, while also revealing the practical issues that will shape scaling. In Chipeni, located in Dowa district, farmer Loveness Mwale's site showed strong establishment across all plots, with visible varietal differences. Farmers were able to compare crop performance under the same conditions, and two farmers selected rotations and two-row strip cropping as options they were interested in taking forward. This suggests that farmers are not simply receiving information, but they are assessing options and making choices based on what they experience. At Loice Maliwa's site, the trial was well laid out, with good weed management, strong crop establishment, and consistent spacing. Farmers demonstrated an understanding of the concepts being tested, showing that the training approach is helping translate research protocols into practical field management. In Chinguluwe, where a cooperative of 51 farmers is participating, the demonstrations have created an important space for collective learning. Although signs of dry spell stress were visible in maize, the overall crop stand was good, and cowpea had many pods. Farmers also raised important market considerations. While cowpea performed well in the field, many preferred groundnuts because they fetch higher prices and have more reliable markets. This feedback is critical because adoption depends not only on agronomic performance, but also on income potential, labour demand, market access, and farmer familiarity. For Christian Thierfelder, CIMMYT principal cropping systems agronomist, WASA reflects the kind of integrated science and partnership needed to respond to climate pressure in smallholder farming systems. "This program connects long-term CA research with practical implementation at scale," he said. "It brings together science, innovation, and partnerships in a way that supports CIMMYT's broader strategy of building more productive, inclusive, and resilient agrifood systems." In its first year, WASA is already showing value as a research and learning platform. The mega demonstrations are helping farmers assess drought-tolerant varieties, rotations, intercropping, strip cropping, and soil and water management practices under real field conditions. The results are promising, but the program is also generating something equally important: farmer feedback that can guide iterative refinement and scaling. As implementation continues, WASA's strength lies in combining scientific evidence with farmer decision-making. For smallholder farmers in Central Malawi, this means having access to tested options that can improve water use, rebuild soil health, and support more stable production in a changing climate.