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.
On August 30, 2017, GWP China and WRI jointly organized side event of ‘Circular Economy Cities: Transforming China and India's Urban Wastewater’ during the 2017 World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden.
With the resumption of activities in Bangui and to facilitate the implementation of WACDEP in the country, the Country Water Partnership of the Central African Republic convene its statutory meetings, the Assembly of Partners and the Steering Committee on 17 August 2017 and 18 August. This CWP was set up in 2008 but remained relatively inactive due to the troubles the country has been facing. A new Steering Committee was put in place, and Mr. YAKENDE Rodrigue Prosper was elected as the new chair.
Framework for improving water balance and nutrient mitigation by applying small water retention measures (FramWat) is a 36-month project which started on 1 July 2017 within INTERREG’s Central Europe Programme.
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 IDMP project manager together with CWP Burkina and some GWP WA staff have visited the pilot project site wher innovating practices of resilience to drought are promoted in Komki Ipala. The visitors were much satisfied with results achieved by the pilot project which initiated various techniques of restoration of degraded lands to produce grass for animal feeding through natural assisted regeneration. These technics are mastered by the populations involved in the project. To show their mastery they are testing a long time abandoned land to grow some crops.
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 event tackled the roles of LGUs, water districts, and stakeholders in the watersheds, updates and best practices in watershed management as well as other ingredients to ensure protection of our valued watersheds, in the context of planning, collaboration and action.