Rabia Faousia OUEDRAOGO is a young student at the International Institute for Water and Environmental Engineering (2IE), in her third year of a degree in Water and Sanitation, who completed an internship at the GWP-WA Regional Secretariat from January to March 2019. As part of her activities, she carried out a field visit on 01 March 2019, in the village of Ramitenga, a rural commune of Loumbila. She spoke with young people and women from the beneficiary population about their participation in the activities of the micro-drip irrigation demonstration project initiated as part of the WACDEP Programme in Burkina Faso.
In this article, Ms. Ouédraogo draws lessons from her forty-five-day stay at GWP-WA Regional Secretariat and makes recommendations following the field mission.
Global Water Partnership had its online ‘Follow the Sun’ consultation on 25-26 June for all regions. Each region had two hours starting with GWP Southern Africa at 12:00 to 14:00 on 25 June and ending with GWP Eastern Africa at 15:00 to 17:00 on 26 June 2019. GWP West Africa had its regional consultation on 26 June 2019 from 10:00 to 12:00 with two country sites (Abidjan and Abuja) participating. Conakry and Banjul could not join because of technical issues related to internet connection on these sites.
The Adaptation Fund has funded for US$ 7.92 million a regional project submitted by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in partnership with the Volta Basin Authority (VBA) and Global Water Partnership West Africa (GWP-WA). The Project intitled "Integrating Flood and Drought Management and Early Warning Systems for Climate Change Adaptation in the Volta Basin" will contribute to improve the resilience of countries sharing the Volta Basin to flood and drought risks and to ensure sustainable socio-economic development of the riparian populations.
The water and sanitation sector stakeholders met on 28 and 29 June 2019 in Cotonou for the traditional sector review. Stakeholders shared and exchanged on progress but also reflected on major concerns in order to ensure sustainable access to water and sanitation for the population.
The transboundary issue is key in water resources management in Africa and mostly in West Africa where all countries except the Island of Cape Verde share at least one river with at least another country. The region has 22 major transboundary river basins, and six established transboundary river basin authorities to contribute to strengthen transboundary cooperation.
The Water and Climate Network of Central African Youth Organisations (RECOJAC) participated in the launch meeting of the 9th World Water Forum from 20th to 21st June 2019. The Youth network is recognized as a key regional network for supporting the preparation of the Forum.
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.
On 18 June, GWP organised a webinar as a follow-up to the “Project Preparation Workshop for Transformational Climate Resilient Water Project Concept for Asia” – held in October last year. The objective was to create a Communities of Practice around the topic.
GWP held its annual Network Meeting on 25-26 June 2019. Following last year’s success, the meeting was held in a Follow the Sun format – a 29-hour long, online meeting of back-to-back sessions with all GWP regions. A big topic was the new GWP Strategy 2020-2025, which is due to be launched shortly – the meeting adopted the network's new strategic directions.
29 hours of the GWP Network Meeting 2019 attracted an audience of 10,000 and 2500 views of the Facebook site, as well as nearly 400 readers of the thematic report on GWP WeChat. Big L♥ve to all for arriving the great success of this event.
