AMCOW Executive Secretary Bai Mass Taal delivered a statement from Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of the Republic of Liberia and Patron of Global Water Partnership, at the opening ceremony of World Water Week 2014:
The Indus River is a major transboundary river in Asia with nine tributaries. The River is about 2,800km long, with 2,682 km in Pakistan. The Indus drainage basin covers an area of about 1,140,000 km2 stretching from Afghanistan through China, India, and Pakistan. Monsoonal rains are the most important flood-causing factor in the Indus basin, followed by the size, shape, and land-use of the catchments as well as the conveyance capacity of the corresponding streams. The monsoon rains fall from June to September, and are generally intense and widespread.
Two members of the WACDEP Reference Group Madam Patience Agyare- Kwabi, a Gender expert from Ghana and Dr. Roberto Martin-Hurtado, an Economist from the United Kingdom and team leader visited Burkina Faso and Ghana, the two West African countries where the WACDEP is being implemented.
The implementation committee of the youth project in Togo organized a press conference on Tuesday, October 27 to introduce the National White Paper. The event took place in the presence of representatives of the government, development partners, youth organizations and the media. It was an opportunity to initiate other actions, particularly with the Delegation of the European Union in Togo to support the dissemination of the white paper after the COY11.
Tanzania from 11-13 March kick-starts the Southern African Development Community (SADC) National Consultations to be held in all the 15 SADC member states. The consultations, to be held under the theme “From Vision to Action”, will provide a platform for (SADC) to engage and interact with the various stakeholders in mapping the strategic direction of the regional water resources management, SADC will be undertaking national consultations in the SADC Water Weeks within 15 of the SADC member countries. In each country, the platform will be provided through three main activities (media training, a youth forum and a national consultation). The national consultations are being facilitated by the SADC secretariat and implemented by GWP SA through the Country Water Partnerships (CWPs). Additionally, each consultation is being hosted by the ministry responsible for water in each country.
Around the world, World Water Day 2014 was celebrated by many, with activities connected to the theme of water and energy. GWP launched a new video, as well as a new Strategy, Towards 2020, in connection with World Water Day, and the day was celebrated across the GWP regions.
The 5th Africa Water Week (AWW5) takes place in Dakar, Senegal on 26 to 31 May 2014. The event is convened by the African Ministers Council on Water (AMCOW) in conjunction with the African Union Commission and organised with other development partners. GWP is involved in a number of activities.
The MedPartnership and ClimVar projects held their final meeting on 3-4 November 2015 in Athens, Greece to showcase the results achieved through the activities and demonstration projects implemented over the past five years or so aiming to address the main environmental challenges that Mediterranean marine and coastal ecosystems face.
As part of the ongoing efforts to generate more interest among journalists in reporting on environmental issues, the Ghana Country Water Partnership (CWP-Ghana) has supported some members of the Federation of Environmental Journalists (FEJ) of the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) to undertake a four day field trip. This trip was organised to the Prestea-Huni Valley District in the Western Region to build the students’ capacity in Environmental Reporting. The purpose of the Field trip was to train the students’ practically on on-field data gathering and reporting methodologies. The trip was from 06th to 09th January, 2016. There were 21 participants. Leading the team was Mr Frederick Asiamah, an environmental journalist and expert from the Ghana WatSan Journalists Network (GWJN).
With global change projections pointing to increasing water scarcity and drought in the Mediterranean, which are bound to cause significant environmental and socio-economic impacts, the development of a new management approach for water basins by integrating scientific thinking with sociological considerations seems essential.