On 27 October, Global Water Partnership and Wuhan International Water Law Academy organised an online engagement session based on the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Governance for Transboundary Freshwater Security. The topic was ‘Does the world need more International Water Law?’ The event attracted approximately 100 participants. “One of the most encouraging feedback was a participant who realized ‘we don’t need to be lawyers to work with international water law.’ We tend to think that it is always lawyers who exercise the law, but the law is there to be exercised by anyone,” said GWP’s Yumiko Yasuda after the event.
Cambodia Water Partnership (CambodiaWP) collaborated with the partners to develop a sound Green Climate Fund (GCF) application. The project proposal was the continuation of the Water, Climate, and Development Programme (WACDEP) started in 2018 aiming at the implementation of IWRM under the medium and long-term flood risks management planning in the Central Floodplain (CFP) of Cambodia.
The Japanese Government, in cooperation with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), launched an online platform for sustainable and resilient recovery from COVID-19. Non-state actors were invited to contribute video messages – with GWP Chair Howard Bamsey stressing that water is at the heart of climate change adaptation.
The Water, Energy, Food and Ecosystems (WEFE) Nexus Science Advances Conference is held online on 27-29 September. The conference will analyse the role of science as a driver of innovation for the sustainable development of the Mediterranean region, and its interfacing with the policy and decision-making processes.
Using the key IWRM challenges identified in Stage 1, the aim of this stage is to facilitate a government-led multi-stakeholder process to formulate and prioritise appropriate responses to those challenges. The result of Stage 2 is typically an IWRM Action Plan (the name might be adapted for each country), which includes a series of attractive investment opportunities to systematically guide the implementation of solutions to IWRM challenges.
The governments of Mozambique and Zimbabwe have established a tri-basin institution to manage the Buzi, Pungwe, and Save River Basins’ water resources, which have, over the years, suffered from extreme climate effects such as floods, droughts, and cyclones.
In our series of inter-regional discussions on gender equality and social inclusion, GWP’s Liza Debevec invited GWP South Asia’s Lal Induruwage, and Ashish Barua of the Swiss development organisation Helvetas, to talk about meaningful and inclusive participation in decision-making and partnerships. This is something both their countries – Sri Lanka and Bangladesh – have made great progress on in policies. However, they both agree that gaps still exist between policies and reality on the ground. One of the big challenges is lack of accountability.
