In June 2012, ABCG- issued a report entitled, “Linking Biodiversity Conservation and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene: Experiences from sub-Saharan Africa which found that there are numerous organizations and projects in Sub-Saharan Africa that are integrating WASH and biodiversity conservation on an ad-hoc basis. Building on that study, ABCG is developing programmatic guidelines for designing integration projects to conserve biodiversity and improve access to WASH services.

To that end, ABCG hosted a workshop for WASH and conservation NGO professionals and donors to increase awareness and understanding of the value of integrated programs, and to gather input for the development of Freshwater Conservation and WASH Guidelines. This effort was led by ABCG members, Janet Edmond and Colleen Vollberg of Conservation International (CI) and Sarah Davidson of The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and supported by a working group made up of coalition members. The following objectives were developed for the workshop:

Provide the space for shared learning on the integration of WASH and freshwater conservation

Critically review the Theory of Change

Determine principles, key ideas and draft recommendations to include in the Guidelines

Develop a joint plan for drafting the Guidelines

The workshop was held at the US Forest Service offices in Washington, DC on May 22 and 23, 2013 with facilitation from Training Resources Group, Inc (TRG). An agenda can be found in Appendix B. Twenty-six people attended the two-day workshop (see Appendix C for a list of participants).