In celebration of World Water Day and the recent passage of the Water for the World Act, we devote this issue of Global Waters to five key topics emphasized in our Water and Development Strategy. They focus on sustainability of WASH services; WASH and nutrition; agricultural water management; sanitation; and water quality. Our five articles show what success in each of these areas looks like. By focusing our efforts, we believe we can make lasting change.

We start with sustainability. Making sure impacts last for the long term has always been important to us, but lately we have been thinking more about how to build sustainability best practices into our water programs. In a thought provoking op-ed, USAID Global Water Coordinator Chris Holmes writes that through long-term monitoring and evaluation, building the capacity of stakeholders on the ground, and collaborating more closely with you, our partners, we can ensure that WASH services are more sustainable.

The Strategy commits to concentrating our efforts on priority countries to ensure we make the most transformative impact. In Nepal, a priority country for both WASH and food security interventions, we look at WASH-nutrition and agricultural water management projects that have already boosted the health, livelihoods, and food security of thousands of vulnerable families. The Suaahara project simultaneously addresses WASH and nutrition with a toolbox that includes everything from government capacity building to an educational radio soap opera. The Hill Maize Research Program helps farmers adapt to climate change by working with them to improve water management and to develop high-yielding, climate-resistant maize varieties.

Another prominent aspect of our Strategy is its special focus on embracing science, technology, and partnerships for development. We take you inside our WASH For Life partnership, which supports sanitation innovations around the world, including two cutting-edge toilets that could solve the problem of disposing of waste cheaply and sustainably. Finally, we spoke with John Feighery, co-founder of USAID-supported mWater, a nonprofit tech startup that developed mobile technology that uses GPS and cloud computing to monitor water quality. He had a lot of interesting things to say about water quality, development, and technology.

We hope you enjoy this issue, and look forward to working with you toward sustainable impact in the water sector, on World Water Day and beyond!