In 2017, water distress increased in Mali, a situation which alerted the Water Management Commission of the Sélingué reservoir and Markala dam (CGESM) to convene a third meeting since the beginning of 2018. This was on Wednesday 21 February 2018 in Ségou, at the direction of the Office du Niger.
A two-day WACDEP workshop was held on 19-20 February 2018 in Ouagadougou to facilitate the implementation process of the Programme to achieve the expected results at regional level and in the beneficiary countries.
Taking advantage of his stay in Abidjan as part of the establishment of the ABCBT, the Chair of GWP-WA had an exchange meeting on Thursday 26 April 2018 with stakeholders of the CWP Côte d'Ivoire (PNECI). The meeting was attended by some members of the Steering Committee and the Scientific and Technical Committee of the CWP. The exchanges focused on the revitalization of the Country Water Partnership of Côte d'Ivoire.
Africa's population is projected to reach 1.6 billion by 2030, which translates into a need to produce at least 50% more food; and at least a tenfold increase in water needs for energy production to support socio-economic development. These challenges and the resultant increase in water demand are further aggravated by rapid urbanization and industrialisation. This requires huge investments in water to satisfy the social and economic demands among other things.
The AIP will support Member States to access transaction management services to assure impactful in-vestments in both infrastructure and nature management solutions for assuring water security; and improve-ments in sanitation and hygiene services delivery.
After their recruitment as Technical Assistants, the two Young Professionals started the six-month internship on Monday 16th July 2018. The following day, they had an exchange session with the GWP-WA staff in order to get them to know the GWP network better and be familiar with the ongoing and planned actions and projects at regional and country levels.