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.
GWP Eastern Africa (GWPEA) Regional Project Manager for IDMP attended the 1st Africa Drought Conference (ADC) that was held on 15-19 August 2016 in Windhoek, Namibia. The theme of the conference was “Enhancing resilience to drought events on the African Continent”. The conference was aimed at discussing ways by the participants (African Union states, UN agencies and other stakeholders) of enhancing resilience on the African continent
Responding to the dramatic increase in extreme weather events and mega disasters is one of the great challenges of the Limpopo River Basin. Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is a top priority for the basin as it seeks to hold back the tide of rising economic and human losses through flood and droughts. To reduce risks from such disasters, GWPSA has over the past 2 years been involved in the development of a disaster risk reduction action plan for the Limpopo Basin. This Plan of Action presents a strategy for integrating disaster risk reduction into the Limpopo transboundary level operations. As part of the process to developing the plan, GWPSA held a workshop on the 5th of April, 2016, to validate the draft DRR action plan of the Limpopo Basin.
Conventions have been with the CWP of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger to allow the implementation of pilot projects in the countries during 2016 and continue the consultation meetings of national and regional platforms in the area of Integrated Drought Management.
The Project Manager has seized the opportunity and visited the pilot villages in the rural town of Gouendo in Mali where Mr. Boureima DIARRA, the mayor of the rural town said that "It is always better to teach us how to fish than to give us the fish".
Pursuant to a decision of the General Assembly of Partners taking into account budgetary limits, the Secretariat has organized the meeting of the Steering Committee electronically at the end of October 2015.
The Zambezi Watercourse Commission (ZAMCOM) and its stakeholders have continued efforts to improve the management of the Zambezi River Basin. A recent activity was an inaugural stakeholder consultation in collaboration with government agencies, academia, other RBOs, and local representatives, which ZAMCOM organised in Windhoek, Namibia from 27-28 September, 2016. The consultation was held under the theme “Enhancing Transboundary Cooperation through Stakeholder Engagement in the Zambezi Basin”.
GWP WA is one of the Focal points of the African Water Information and Documentation System (AWIS) managed by the ANBO through its Strengthening the Institutions of Transboundary Basins Organizations (SITWA) Project based at the OMVS in Dakar, Senegal. The workshop was to identify the main directions for a work plan addressing the identified needs and gaps of the African Water Information System (AWIS).