Covering a geographical area of 20,361 km2 connecting 5 countries and 5 water bodies, the Drin Basin in Southeast Europe sustains unique ecosystems and endemic biodiversity, while supporting the economic activity of over 1.6 million people who call it home. However, four transboundary problems - deterioration of water quality, variability of hydrological regime, biodiversity degradation and disturbance of the natural sediment transport regime - are threatening the basin’s health with a direct impact on both the environment and livelihoods.
The 2022 edition of GWP’s annual Network Meeting of GWP Partners will take place online on 25 May, and will build on last year’s theme of Leading Change and Innovation through our Partners.
In December 2020, GWP welcomed six new members on its Steering Committee, adding to seven members who have served longer. The Committee acts as a Board of Directors for the GWP Network and the GWP Organisation (GWPO). The members rotate every three or six years. Now, for the first time, a Permanent Youth Seat has been added. Jamilla Sealy from Barbados is the new representative on this seat. “Being the first youth, and also being a female of African descent and from the Caribbean, which are often under-represented in the global sphere, makes it a humbling experience”, she says about her appointment.
The event series, “Transboundary freshwater security governance train” continued on 20 April. The initiative is a collaboration between GWP and Wuhan International Water Law Academy, and the topic of the 4th session was “International Water Law and Climate Change.” Around 120 participants joined the online session. “Climate change is one of the biggest challenges in international water law,” said event Co-Chair Barbara Janusz-Pawletta.
Global Water Partnership Southern Africa (GWPSAF) led by Vice Chair Eng. Munashe Mvura, attended a Diplomatic Corps working luncheon on July 26, hosted by the Chief Executive Officer of the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) Ms. Nardos Bekele- Thomas.
How well is the world managing its water resources? To answer that question, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), with the UNEP-DHI Centre and Global Water Partnership (GWP), have analysed the responses from 186 countries to the survey instrument on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicator 6.5.1 – the degree of implementation of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) – showing that the world as a whole has advanced from 49% in 2017 to 54% in 2020. While this does show definite progress, 107 countries are currently not on track to meet the target of implementing IWRM by 2030, and to reach the global goal, the current rate of implementation would need to at least double.
The importance of advancing gender equality and mobilising gender transformative investments to ensure equal opportunities in tackling the impacts of climate change and water insecurity were some of the issues addressed at the AIP-WACDEP-G Tunisia pilot project launch workshop that took place in Beja, Tunisia.
The Caribbean Science Symposium on Water by the Global Water Partnership-Caribbean (GWP-C), takes place virtually on March 23rd – 25th, 2021 from 9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Atlantic Standard Time (AST) on each day. The theme of the event is “Building Resilience in the Regional Water Sector to Address Climatological and Hydrological Risks and Threats.”
Albania has made significant improvements in advancing the normative framework for gender equality in recent years. An online Technical Workshop on Gender Equality (GE) and Sustainable Development in Nexus attempted to discuss how gender is addressed in Nexus sectors’ strategies and policies and bring some concrete best practices on how gender issues can be addressed in development programmes.
