In 2018, the International Coordinating Council of the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme approved the registration of the Lower Prut Biosphere Reserve, which has now officially become the first biosphere reserve in Moldova.
This month, Howard Bamsey began his duties as the new Chair of GWP. He did so with a visit to the global secretariat in Stockholm, Sweden, where he met staff and got briefed on current issues around the network. We took the opportunity to discuss his thoughts on joining GWP, and his reflections on some of GWP’s most recent activities at the UN climate change conference, COP24, in December.
The SADC Secretariat has been holding a series of workshops for the transboundary River Basin Organisations (RBOs) in the region since 2006. The workshops are organised with the aim of using RBOs as a vehicle for strengthening regional integration and have served as a key tool for implementing SADC’s Revised Regional Protocol on Shared Watercourses (2000).
GWP SA has, since its inception, supported the implementation of the Regional Strategic Action Plan on Integrated Water Resources Management. As an implementing partner for the past 19 years, GWPSA has been requested to support implementation within the framework of the SADC-GIZ Transboundary Water Management Programme.
The programmatic support to SADC ensures that stakeholders are engaged in regional processes and influenced to implement good practices in transboundary water resources management.
Activities under this focus area aim to promote gender mainstreaming in the water sector as part of implementing priority intervention P3.1 in the RSAP IV on IWRM in line with the SADC Gender Policy and the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development.