2025 Call To Action

#ActionForWASH

2025 CALL TO ACTION
FOR SURVIVAL & RESILIENT WASH

In 2024, 176.6 million people* required humanitarian Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) aid—yet only 48 million were given access. By year’s end, the humanitarian WASH sector received only 37% of the required funding*, with further reduction of global funding for humanitarian and development aid expected. In 2025, the humanitarian WASH sector requires $3.2 billion, yet only $146 million—just 4.5%—has been secured*. This crisis is compounded by over $72 billion in global development assistance cuts, with devastating consequences for humanitarian response. This signals a critical shift in the humanitarian financing paradigm and raises alarm over states' responsibility to uphold access to water and sanitation under international human rights law.
The shrinking of global humanitarian aid directly threatens the lives and dignity of those living in fragile, conflict- and violence-affected (FCV) settings, where the consequences of poor WASH access are most severe. Eighty percent of diseases in crisis contexts are linked to unsafe water and inadequate sanitation, and disruptions to WASH services only deepen instability, prolong displacement, and increase aid dependency. Coordinated emergency responses continue to deliver critical WASH services even as access, funding, and protection of infrastructure become increasingly difficult. This leads to an additional 70 million people in immediate need* facing the devastating consequences of suspended humanitarian WASH programs in over 30 countries.
The renewed 2025 Call to Action is supported by the Global WASH Cluster, which plays a critical role in leading and coordinating effective and accountable humanitarian WASH responses in crises. Led by UNICEF, and mandated by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, it represents more than 1,100 humanitarian actors in over 30 countries. The 2025 Call to Action takes into consideration the shifting paradigm in humanitarian financing, the increasing needs in growing FCV contexts, the progress shown over the past two years for the WASH sector, especially the 2023 UN Water Conference and the nomination of the Special Envoy for Water in 2024 (which was one of the 2023 CTA claims). This is a reminder of the need for urgent, coordinated, and principled action to strengthen advocacy for humanitarian and development WASH in FCV settings. The Humanitarian WASH sector[1], through this Call To Action, urges governments, donors, humanitarian and development stakeholders to prioritize survival WASH responses, especially in FCV settings.

*All data sources can be found in the Call To Action PDF

The launch of the 2025 Call To Action took place on July 9th 2025 in New York City, at the UN PGA Meeting where the 2026 UN Water Conference interactive dialogues were discussed and decided on.
Marie-Laure Vercambre, General Director of the French Water Partnership and Nicolas Villeminot, Senior WASH Advisor of Action Against Hunger, made a speech to launch the Call and approached the co-chairs of the UN 2026 WC, the States of Senegal and the United Arab Emirates, with the support of the Swiss and Slovenian delegations.

From left to right: Nicolas Villeminot (ACF US), Marie-Laure Vercambre (FWP), Tanja Miskova (Slovenian delegation), Maurice Voyame and Isabella Pagotto (Swiss delegation)

Marie-Laure Vercambre's speech to officially launch the 2025 Call to Action.

Do you wish to participate in this cooperative and meaningful action? You do not need to be a WASH Road Map actor to do so, simply let yourself be guided by the three steps bellow:

Step 1: Discover the 2025 survival and resilient WASH Call To Action

cLICK HERE TO OPEN THE CALL

Already convinced by the goals of the Call To Action? Click here to sign it!

Step 2: Explore over 231 organisations, institutes, companies, networks, and governmentS that have signed the Call To Action

UN Member States supporting the Call To Action, in chronological order:

Non-governmental entities supporting the Call To Action, in alphabetical order:

Alliance urgence

Step 3: take part in the unprecedented effort to make the UN 2026 Water conference meaningful for the humanitarian wash sector

Before signing, please consider that only individuals that have the authority to represent their organisation, company, network, institution, or else, may sign on behalf of it. As mentionned in the survey below, if you do not hold that authority, we will be unable to accept the signature nor to add the logo to this page.
We also call UN member States to endorse this Call to Action. Can we kindly ask country representatives to send an official communication note to the WASH Road Map Secretariat at i[email protected]? We could thus ensure that we only display countries which have formally endorsed the Call to Action on our website and in our communications.

Click here to sign the Call To Action!

STEP 4: Share the call to action and your support on social media and to your network!

Choose your favorite visual down below and download it to share the news of the 2025 CTA launch on your social media !
When sharing the news on your social media, make sure you tag the @WASHRoadMap on Linkedin and Twitter and to use the hashtag #ActionForWash!

Access to the Google Drive file with all visuals : https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1THOgZfPgdulNlU2ZKMR4Qo79uCKrpyW5?usp=drive_link