GWP China Follows the Sun at the 2018 Network Meeting

On September 27 and 28, 2018, the 2018 GWP Network Meeting- ‘Follow the Sun’-was jointly organised by the GWP Regional Water Partnerships (RWP) to enable the network partners from 86 countries to connect and contribute to the GWP new strategy 2020-2025.


Online Session of GWP China Region on September 28

In the ‘Follow-the-Sun’ format, each RWP organised a face-to-face session in selected countries and invited more partner organisations to join online. GWP China Regional Session was taken place in Beijing while the Sun raised on September 28, 2019. By taking up the baton from GWP Executive Secretary Dr Monika Weber-Fahr who chaired the last session in Washington D.C., China Regional Coordinator Yunzhong Jiang moderated the regional face-to-face communication between China regional stakeholders and global peers. GWP China Region invited 16 people representing the regional committee, governmental agencies, media, youth association, research institution, international NGO and provincial/river basin partnerships. They brought advice and comments of over 200 partner organisations on the strategic development of GWP in the next phase.

The two-hour session was broadcasting live on Facebook. The China regional partners held that GWP plays a vital role in the sustainability of water resources and water management in the world. It should remain mature strengths to revolute itself to be a ‘think tank’ that will generate concrete outcomes upon the SDG 6.5.1 and further contribute to all goals of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Upon IWRM, GWP will overwhelm competitors if it can explore multiple media to highlight GWP’s lead in the IWRM evolution. The smart tools could be ‘annual international event on IWRM’, ‘regional/national IWRM development report’, ‘international IWRM award’, ‘a set of publications on IWRM’, etc. Most regions in the GWP network have transboundary rivers, and they can reinforce GWP’s gifts in creating principles and practices tools of the integrated river basin management in the future.

Towards a sustainable development of the organisation, GWP must build a robust executive management team at global, regional and national levels. Leaders with charisma will be the best safeguard to the progress of GWP. Partners are expecting more talents to join the leading board at each level who have idealised influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualised consideration that will affect the expansion of network and institutional building.