Joyce Najm Mendez describes herself as a technoxamanist, TEDx lecturer, STEM advocate and social entrepreneur working on the water-energy-food nexus and transboundary cooperation. She is a MSc candidate in Sustainability and Adaptation Planning at the Centre of Alternative Technology, UK, and she has co-founded several organisations in Latin America, tackling mainly sustainability and adaptation-mitigation of climate change. In this article, she shares some of her experiences. She says that “working with young people means investing in the present, and the opportunity for real change in the civilisation paradigm.”
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.
In celebration of this year’s International Women’s Day commemorated under the theme “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow”, the female staff of the regional secretariat of GWP-Central Africa, took part in a training on good practices of vegetative propagation in agroforestry to promote climate adaptation and build resilience.
In response to many requests, we have decided to extend the deadline for the Water ChangeMaker Awards with one week - to 14 June 2020 by midnight CEST - to give those who have not yet finalized their submissions a chance to participate.
In spite of the health crisis related to the spread of Covid 19, GWP-WA and its partners in Niger have committed themselves to the implementation of the project kick-off activities with the recruitment of the Project Management Unit staff and the setting up of the tools for the operational implementation of the project.
Global Water Partnership (GWP)’s Africa Coordination Unit hosted the first Transboundary Water Governance Lab online event on the 18th November, with the purpose of assessing interest in the establishment of an International Water Law Community of Practice (CoP). The event was attended by alumni and partners of the Pan-African Water Governance and International Water Law, which has taken place annually since 2015.
The 6th PIDA Week was postponed in 2020, but it is now set to take place 18-21 January. The event is hosted by the Government of South Africa under the auspices of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). The theme is “New decade, new realities, new priorities – positioning PIDA and infrastructure development in Africa’s continued growth and economic recovery”. On 18 January, GWP Africa and the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) are co-convening a session titled “Mobilising resources for PIDA Water Projects”.
