Climate Risk-Informed Decision Analysis (CRIDA) Framework Approved as UNESCO IHP Flagship Initiative

At the 26th Intergovernmental Council meeting of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme, on 5-7 Jun 2024, member states approved a draft resolution to upgrade the U.S. co-led Climate Risk-Informed Decision Analysis (CRIDA) Framework to Flagship Initiative status. 

CRIDA is a framework for integrating climate change considerations in water resources planning and management. It does so by identifying vulnerabilities associated with wide range of plausible future climate, and formulating flexible and robust adaptation strategies that mitigate directly against those vulnerabilities. The methodology has been applied in at least 25 studies in 22 countries around the world. Up until the Council meeting, CRIDA events had been organized entirely through IHP’s drylands water resources program, G-WADI, but many basins and watersheds that would benefit from a CRIDA approach are in temperate or even humid zones. Thus, ICIWaRM and the IHP Secretariat both felt that it was time to assign CRIDA to its own Flagship Initiative.

The 26th Council meeting saw participation from 55 UNESCO Member States, including 29 Council members, and observers from UNESCO Category 2 water-related Centers and Chairs, NGOs and UN organizations.  On Thursday, 6 Jun 2024, following a short debate with mostly supporting statements, the Council swiftly adopted the U.S.-led draft resolution with minor changes.

The strong support for the CRIDA resolution reflected the initiative’s demonstrated potential to provide robust frameworks for water management under climate uncertainty.  The United States and other supporting countries highlighted CRIDA’s importance in integrating scientific data and understanding with decision-making processes to enhance resilience against climate impacts.  Following adoption of the resolution, the delegations of Ghana, Nigeria, Sudan, and Morocco all asked to be added to the list of co-sponsors of the resolution, alongside original co-sponsors Netherlands, Uganda, and Republic of Korea.

The U.S. delegation had pre-negotiated with the Egyptian Delegation some language asking the IHP Secretariat to “seek synergies” between CRIDA and the Egypt-led Action on Water Adaptation and Resilience (AWARe) initiative. This helped ensure the swift adoption of the CRIDA resolution once it came up for debate. 

CRIDA’s adoption as an IHP Flagship Initiative increases its visibility and marks a significant step in advancing global water security through adaptive management strategies. More information on CRIDA can be found at https://www.unesco.org/CRIDA.