Partners for Water in ASEAN and beyond: turning adaptation plans into climate resilience

Across Southeast Asia, climate adaptation is entering a new phase. Most ASEAN countries now have a National Adaptation Plan (NAP). The next step is harder: turning these plans into action on the ground. Through Partners for Water, The Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management is supporting this next step through cross-learning by bringing experts, governments and countries together to learn from each other. This is part of a wider approach that reaches beyond the ASEAN region.

ASEAN is one of the global regions most vulnerable to climate change. Rising temperatures, extreme weather, sea-level rise and water scarcity put pressure on food security, infrastructure and livelihoods. Like elsewhere in the world, turning national plans into local action depends on access to finance and close horizontal and vertical coordination between different layers of government.

Cross-learning helps to bridge that gap. Climate resilience and water management are shared priorities in the partnership between ASEAN and the Netherlands. Since 2025, a cross-learning event has taken place each year in the country that chairs ASEAN. Delegates bring challenges and real cases from their own countries and work on them with peers and experts. Promising cases can lead to follow-up support, bringing plans a step closer to implementation.

Organised by the Philippines, chair of ASEAN in 2026 and the Government of the Netherlands, and facilitated by Partners for Water, the latest cross-learning event took place in Malolos City in September 2026. Seven ASEAN countries and the Netherlands came together around one shared question: how do you turn long-term plans into results on the ground?

Dutch knowledge in practice

The sessions in Malolos covered themes that have shaped Dutch water practices over the years, drawing on experiences from both at home and through international cooperation. Dutch experts shared their experiences as input for the cases that delegates brought from their own countries.

Land subsidence was one of these themes. Experts from Wageningen University & Research shared insights into its underlying causes, including groundwater extraction. The issue came up in several cases, from the Pampanga Delta, the Mekong and Red River Delta, the Bangkok Bay to the North coast of Java. The Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways (DAPP) approach offered a way to look at these cases over time. Which steps are needed now, and which choices can wait without limiting future options?

Nature-based approaches and transformative landscapes are gaining ground in the Netherlands and across the ASEAN region. In the Pampanga River Basin, for example, residents, farmers and a local wetlands NGO are helping to turn a plan for large grey infrastructure into one that combines floodwater storage, protected zones and farmland that accommodate floodwaters when needed.

Financing these approaches remains a challenge. Yet nature-based approaches can generate benefits values in multiple ways. Mangroves protect against erosion and provide breeding grounds for fish, which supports local livelihoods. Other solutions also bring wider benefits, such as ecotourism. Knowing exactly what these benefits are, and who receives them, helps to identify how these solutions can be funded.

What connects these themes is a shared way of working: start from the local context, build plans together with the people who live there, and combining local knowledge with expertise from elsewhere.

What the Netherlands takes home

Cross-learning is not a one-way exchange. ASEAN countries are already dealing with climate extremes such as intense rainfall, drought and saltwater intrusion. That experience offers valuable lessons for the Netherlands, both in general and through specific cases.

The nature-based alternatives developed for the Pampanga River Basin are one example. Storing floodwater in rice fields can serve as an example for Dutch approaches, such as a ‘wisselpolder’ (a sedimentation or land-raising polder) or the rewetting of peatlands. The same goes for measures that dampen waves and trap sediment, such as coastal forests and nature-based wave breakers, as seen on the coast of Pamarawan Island.

“The resilience of local people is especially inspiring to me,” says Liliane Geerling of Partners for Water. “Local adaptation measures can be very creative. Raised tricycles, an important mode of transport in the Philippines, can keep carrying people even when roads are under 80 centimetres of water.”

Beyond Southeast Asia

The same approach reaches beyond Southeast Asia. Alongside ASEAN, Partners for Water supports cross-learning with Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, in collaboration with the NAP Global Network. Peer learning events in Johannesburg and Accra in 2026 focused on the same question as Malolos: moving national adaptation priorities from planning to implementation. Insights from both regions will be shared at international forums, such as the UN climate conferences.

The exchange continues

Insights from Malolos will be presented at COP17 in November 2026 and at the UN Water Conference in December 2026. In 2027, the next ASEAN cross-learning event will take place in Singapore, coinciding with ASEAN’s 60th anniversary.

Throughout the year we will continue the cross-learning activities via webinars and one-on-one support. Meanwhile, the African track will continue with a workshop in Kenya.