The Mekong is the longest river in Southeast Asia, beginning its 4,200 km journey in the mountains of the Tibetan Plateau, passing six countries and reaching the South China Sea. Policy reforms to adopt integrated water resources management had been initiated and water related laws had been developed. However, there were still major gaps in the supporting knowledge and information. IUCN and its program Water &Nature Initiative (WANI) supported to scale up so called Tai Baan research (villagers’ research) that enabled local communities to represent their own social reality and through media and public forum, this knowledge can be mainstreamed into water management research and implementation.
GWP representatives will be at the 7th World Water Forum in Korea in April, taking part in many of the events and sessions of the conference. In addition to delegates from the global secretariat, some GWP Regional Water Partnerships are actively facilitating the regional processes.
The Country Water Partnership of Benin held on Friday 26 February 2016 the meeting of its Boards. The context is marked by a drastic reduction of finances due to the suspension of the funding of the Pluriannual support programme to the water and sanitation sector and the IWRM institutionnal progression in Benin.
In preparation for a Youth Engagement Strategy, GWP consulted one of its Partner organisations: the Water Youth Network (WYN). The Strategy was launched in Stockholm on 25 August 2015. Some WYN voices were captured in a video connected to this event.
Climate change and the increasing number of competing water users have led to the overexploitation of the Pangani river basin resources. Action has been taken to establishing environmental, economic and social implications of different river flow scenarios under expected climatic conditions. This helped to prioritize the allocation of water resources to meet basic human needs and those of ecosystems. The main lesson learnt was that providing a platform for dialogue between key stakeholders and increasing knowledge about the climatic variability and future risk are essential for successful water management solutions.
An e-module on IWRM was launched in 2012 after a lengthy a collaboration between several German institutions that had identified a gap in the field of integrated water resources management education. The development of the module continues, with GWP as a potential “catalyst” to generate further interest in the module.