GWP capitalised on the unique opportunity offered by the 9th World Water Forum – as a place of convergence for stakeholders across its global membership – to host a two-day workshop on the Global Water Leadership (GWL) Programme. GWL country and regional leads met for the first time to discuss plans for the second year of the programme and explore how they can encourage cross-sectoral cooperation while also engaging face-to-face with experts from the GWP network.
Water is intimately connected to the way of life in the Caribbean – reaching across environment, economy, social well-being, systems of governance, rights and dignity. Furthermore, ensuring that everyone has access to sustainable water and sanitation services, is a critical climate change mitigation strategy for the future.
GWP’s ongoing country consultations to evaluate the degree of implementation of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is progressing as planned, with July being a busy month. In Central America alone, consultations were held in El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama (shown in the above photo).
Fifteen media representatives in Cameroon have been trained on issues related to the water, climate and environment sector and some key national and regional laws that seek to address them. This media mobilization workshop was organized by GWP-CAf from June 9th - 10th, 2021 in Douala, Cameroon. .
This year, the GWP network repeated the "Follow the Sun" experience, an online partner network meeting, after the success of last year. From 25th to 26th June 2019, all GWP regions were given the opportunity to express their views on the new GWP 2020-2025 strategy, for which they actively participated in the development.
World Water Day will be commemorated on March 22nd, as it has been since 1993. The day is dedicated to emphasize the value of freshwater. UN-Water is leading a campaign to make groundwater visible in 2022. Although groundwater may be out of sight, its impact is visible everywhere.
On 23 June, GWP Chair Howard Bamsey took part in a panel discussion on water and climate organised by pharmaceutical company Bayer and the Water and Climate Coalition. Bamsey said the water community needs to better articulate the central role of water in climate: “Water is a part of the climate struggle.”
The World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought is a United Nations observance celebrated each year on 17 June. Its purpose is to raise awareness around desertification and drought, highlighting methods on how to prevent these from occurring. The 2021 edition focuses on turning degraded land into healthy land - the event key words are restoration, land and recovery.