The Third Asia-Pacific Water Summit (APWS) will take place on 11-12 December in Yangon, Myanmar. The event is jointly organised by the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and the Asia-Pacific Water Forum (APWF) under the overarching theme “water security for sustainable development”.
The 23rd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP23) to the UN Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will be organised by Fiji and hosted at the headquarters of the UNFCCC Secretariat in Bonn, Germany. The 2-week event takes place 6-17 November.
Water insecurity costs the global economy roughly US$ 500 billion annually and causes the death and displacement of more people than cyclones, floods and earthquakes combined. In particularly vulnerable economies, a 50% reduction in drought effects could lead to a 20% increase in per capita GDP over a period of 30 years. Therefore, mechanisms to enhance integrated drought management are more critical than ever.
The Global Water Partnership-Nigeria team were in the National Assembly to pay an advocacy visit on the Senate Committee Chairman on Water Resources, Sen. Uballi Shittu and the House Committee Chairman on Water Resources, Hon. Aliyu Pategi. Due to the strategic importance of the meeting, Sen. Uballi Shittu sought the approval of the Senate Leader, Senator Ahmed Lawal to be part of the meeting. The advocacy visit is aimed at sensitizing the National Assembly on the activities of GWP and also plead for the accelerated passage of the National Water Resources Bill.
The Gambia Country Water Partnership (GCWP) held a national workshop on monitoring and reporting on the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Six (#6) indicator 6.5. The event took place on 29 August 2017 at the Tango Conference hall in Banjul. Target 6.5 reads “Implement integrated water resources management at all levels, including through transboundary cooperation as appropriate”. The workshop is aimed at facilitating the submission of baseline data on SDG 6.5.1 on the implementation of Integrated Water Resources Management.
On Wednesday, 30 August 2017, an awareness and information workshop for civil society, the media and the general public was held in Cotonou on the ECOWAS Directive on the development of hydraulic infrastructures. The workshop was organized by the Benin Country Water Partnership in collaboration with the Ministry in charge of water and the financial support of the IUCN Global Water Initiative (GWI) Project.
Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, 23 August 2017. The Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) and the Global Water Partnership-Caribbean (GWP-C), have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to collaborate on initiatives related to water resources and human health.
The program on River Black (Hei He in Chinese) has implemented from 2016. The GWP China Yellow River worked with the River Black Administration to implant ‘sense of ecosystem’ into the mind of decision makers of to improve the environmental quality of the river basin. The WACDEP in China (2017-2019) emphasizes ‘integrated river basin management (IRBM)’ implementation outcomes of the River Black Basin.
The official launch to restore the head source of the Mekrou basin was done on 20 June 2017 by the Mayor of Kouandé as part of the implementation of the Pilot Project to Support the Restoration of the Mekrou Basin (PAREM). This is the start of the campaign for the reforestation the site of “Makrou wirou” in the neighborhoods of Birni (commune of Kouandé).
The Government of Honduras is fully committed to implementing the SDGs. That is why the authorities have begun efforts to align the SDGs with national and programmatic objectives for development - a summary of work done to date has now been published.