The Department of Agriculture, Water Resources and Environment (DAREN) and the ECOWAS Commission in collaboration with the Global Water Partnership in West Africa (GWP-WA), the African Network of Basin Organizations (ANBO); the Secretariat of the Convention for the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (UNECE) organized a regional workshop on the theme "Operationalization of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) at the river basin level in West Africa: approaches, achievements, challenges and good practices'', from November 30 to December 03, 2021, both face to face in Ouagadougou with virtual participation of partners in the countries.
The first meeting of the program coordinating committee was held in Cotonou on Tuesday, February 23, 2021, with the actors involved in the implementation of the WACDEP-G program in Benin.
World Water Day is an important milestone to raise the awareness of water security globally. The theme of World Water Day 2021 is valuing water. The value of water is greater than its price – water has enormous and complex value for our households, food, culture, health, education, economics and the integrity of our natural environment. Without a comprehensive understanding of water’s true, multidimensional value, it will be challenging to safeguard this critical resource for the benefit of people, environment, and economic development.
The Indonesia Water Coalition (IWC) that officially established through the charter signing ceremony on the 29 January 2021 sees World Water Day as an important milestone to achieve water security in Indonesia, which aligns with its vision. Since its establishment in January 2021, the coalition has been focusing on initiating multi-stakeholder collaboration to tackle the growing water challenges jointly. To leverage best practices from each company and organization, we are inviting the coalition’s founding members to share their commitments, achievements, and future-plans to the public via online sharing sessions between 22-31 March 2021. As one of the founding members, Fany Wedahuditama, Regional Coordinator for Global Water Partnership Southeast Asia (GWP-SEA) shared these discussion topic on the 29 March 2021.
The Chair of GP-WA, Prof. Amadou H. MAIGA and the Executive Secretary, Mr. Armand HOUANYE visited Senegal from 16 to 21 Novembre 2020 to support the Country Water Partnership (CWP) that is engaging new actions for a renewed dynamism. The chair of CWP Senegal, Dr. Adrien COLY invited the regional leadership to back the CWP in its efforts for consolidating the actions he has started with his team to strengthen the partnership, build new alliances and engage new fund-raising initiatives.
GWP-WA signed on February 19, 2021 with the Regional Office of the IUCN Program for Central and West Africa (IUCN-PACO) an agreement to support the implementation in 2021 of the project titled "Regional Partnership on Water and Environment in Central and West Africa (PREE)", with the financial support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).
The general objective of the meeting was to briefly present to the members of the technical committee the content of the draft report of the pre-feasibility study of the project in order to enable them to provide guidance to the consulting team in the formulation of the concept note and the finalization of the pre-feasibility study report.
Last year the global pandemic exposed how current governance systems are inadequately prepared to address systemic challenges that threaten humanity. Better preparedness can make communities more resilient to large scale threats. On 2 June, GWP launched a report, “Mobilising Change: 10 years of climate resilient water investments”, which is a contribution to implementing transformative development to solve climate change challenges to water security.
The African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) has formally launched a first of its kind for Africa scorecard to track progress in mobilisation of investments towards water security during its 7th annual conference on the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) in Nairobi, Kenya, 1-4 March 2022.
A training of trainers on "the fundamentals of citizen watch" was organized on 17 and 18, 2021 in Porto-Novo. This activity is part of the implementation of the governance component of the OmiDelta program by the consortium CWP-Benin, Social Watch and ALCRER.
After three years of intensive work, the GEMWET project has successfully concluded, proving that environmental conservation and sustainable development is a win-win recipe that benefits communities, promotes economic prosperity and ensures the protection of natural resources.
