At the 11th GWPSA Consulting Partners held in Pretoria from 12-13th November, 2015, GWPSA Partners elected a new Chair. In line with GWPSA’s Constitution, the Chair will serve for four years. The new Chair, Dr. Kuiri F. Tjipangandjara is from Namibia. He obtained his D Sci Eng Degree in 1991 in Mineral Engineering and Chemical Metallurgy, at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Columbia University, New York City, USA.
From 26 to 31 January 2015, the Chair of GWP-WA, Pr. Abel AFOUDA and the Network Officer for West Africa, Mr. Manuel FULCHIRON were having a working visit at the Regional Secretariat. For the first meeting of the New Year, the Chair expressed his good wishes in the hope that this year will be shining for GWP-WA to support CWP for greater visibility in the countries.
The regional WACDEP team in collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), GWP and the Volta Basin Authority (VBA) is working on an initiative to prepare the project for the implementation of integrated flood management and the development of bankable projects, through the Associated Programme on Flood Management (APFM), the WACDEP coordination unit.
To commemorate GWP’s 20th anniversary, a 2-minute video has been produced explaining – without words – the challenges of the world’s water crises and GWP’s answer: join our network so that all stakeholders can work in partnership to secure water for sustainable development.
CWP Benin, leading the consultation framework of non state actors of water and sanitation sector has organized on May 3, 2016 a meeting of stakeholders. This meeting was followed by a press conference on the proposal from the civil society organizations asking that the rights to water and sanitation be included in the constitution of Benin. It came out from discussions that a Note should be drafted and addressed for advocacy purposes to the commission set up by the Government on the issue. A team of the civil society was heared by this commission on 23 May 2016.
After the validation of roadmaps and the signing of different agreements, the month of June was marked by the start of the investigations by young people from Benin, Burkina Faso and Togo. These actions are carried out with the financial support of GIZ for Benin and financial support of GWP / WA for Burkina Faso and Togo.
Representatives of GWP Southeast Asia, GWP South Asia and GWP Central Asia and Caucasus joined The Regional Workshop on South-South Cooperation in Flood Management, organised by the GWP global secretariat and GWP China from 14 to 16 December 2015 in Guangdong, China.
The Integrated Drought Management Project in West Africa (IDMP-WA) made its internal assessment of the first year of project implementation and discussed the existing national plans during a meeting.
The meeting, held in Ouagadougou from 8 to 10 December 2015 was an opportunity to discuss the main actions undertaken during the first year of implementation of the project. Among these actions the review in detail of the initiatives / institutions in Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and at regional level, starting the establishment of national and regional platforms of exchanges on integrated drought management, the development by CWP and their partners of demonstration project documents, the identification of training needs for stakeholders and also the preliminary exchanges with the ECOWAS/WRCC to advocate for the development of regional guidelines ondrought.
India Water Week-2016 was held from 4 to 8 April 2016 with the theme of ‘Water for All: Striving together’. While the Inaugural and Plenary ceremony of the event took place at Vigyan Bhavan; the rest such as seminars, panel discussions, side events, exhibitions, brainstorming sessions, were held at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi.