World Water Day is a major event celebrated and observed by the Philippine water sector.

This year’s WWD theme:“International Year of Water Cooperation” was translated into local slogan of  “Tubig Para sa Lahat, Lahat Para sa Tubig”  (“Water for all, all for Water”)   and served as the core message for the celebration participated by multi-stakeholders coming from the government sector, private sector and non-government organizations (NGOs).

Water security in many urban areas is under threat due to the stresses of population growth, urbanisation, water pollution, the over-abstraction of groundwater, water-related disasters, and climate change. Current planning and management have proven insufficient to address the challenges of water security. There is a need for a paradigm shift, which was introduced during a GWP workshop attended by more than 200 participants at Asia Water Week on 13 March in Manila, Philippines.

There are no formal categorizations of floods in Malaysia but is often broadly categorized as monsoonal, flash or tidal floods. In addition, floods are also described based on its location, characteristics, the cause, the timing as to when it occurs and its duration. (Department of Drainage Malaysia information)

For the very first time, Southeast Asian countries have prepared an overall overview on WRM Financing, where it is linked to the GWP message: finance and good water governance are inextricably linked.

Currently, water resources management in irrigation and drought, flood management are effecting greatly by climate change.  Learning and disseminating of related information systematically will help facilitate the adjustment of water resources management of responsible agencies in time and responsive to the changing situation.  Evidences from climate change on watershed ecosystem are obvious and diversified, for example, irrigated water insufficiency, disasters from floods, landslide, and drought.  Data and information about these are available with consulting firms or line agencies.  To be more effective in dealing with these problems, local stakeholders and the RBC should have sufficient knowledge to fully and equally participate in the process.  Thus the RBC and local stakeholders’ capacity will be strengthened in monitoring of the IWRM, especially in the critical river basins. 

In Vietnam, there are two kinds of RBO; 1) The Management Board of River basin Planning (MBRBP), established and managed by Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) in a period from 1999-2001 in compliance with Law on Water Resources 1998. 2) The Committee for Environmental Protection of River Basin (CEPRB), established and also managed by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) during the time 2009-2010.

Myanmar Water Partnership together with Irrigation Department (ID), Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation (MOAI) of the Government of Union of Myanmar, with sponsorship support from Global Water Partnership - South East Asia (GWP-SEA) held a dialogue on Water-Food-Energy Security as a Major Contributing Constituent for Sustainable National Development in Myanmar.

GWP Indonesia workshop on urban water management challenges  which was held  on 28  November 2012 brought together experts on water management, government  officers, NGOs  and academia to deliberate  on the challenges of water management in urban area with  focus on issues related to waste water and drainage in Jakarta, Capital city of Indonesia.

GWP Thailand has been working to strengthen stakeholders' capacity in monitoring IWRM in critical river basins suffering from resource overuse. 

GWP Malaysia and the Global Environment Centre co-organised a Regional Training of Trainers course on Ecosystem Services and IWRM on 18-21 June 2012. It was targeted to enable greater awareness and understanding on ecosystem management based on a holistic and sustainable manner aimed at empowering relevant stakeholders in Malaysia with knowledge and skills needed to adopt the ecosystem services concept.