More than 140 decision makers and representatives of government, civil society, international organisations, donors, financing institutions, and the private and banking sector, came together for 3 days sharing experiences and discussing needs, challenges and next steps during the “Conference on Water Governance in MENA and wider Mediterranean region” that was held in Barcelona, on 12-14 December. The Regional Conference was organised under the auspices of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), by two UfM-labelled projects supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), namely the Governance & Financing for the Mediterranean Water Sector project led by GWP-Med, and the Regional Water Integrity Capacity Building Programme in MENA, led by SIWI UNDP Water Governance Facility. The Conference was organised in close and strategic synergy with the EU-funded Sustainable Water Integrated Management and Horizon 2020 Support Mechanism (SWIM-H2020 SM) regional project.
Objective: The objective is to support the efficient execution of the legal, technical, procedural and manage-rial functions required to implement large water investment projects as these frequently consti-tute blockages to development due to their complexity.
As part of the implementation of the scientific component of the Mekrou project (2014-2017), five computer equipment packages each consisting of a central unit, a screen, an inverter and decision support tools softwares were given to scientific institutions in the three countries of the project: National Water Institue (INE) of Benin, Institute for Environment and Agricultural Research (INERA) of Burkina Faso and University Abdou Moumini (UAM) of Niger and the two regional institutions, NBA and AGHRYMET.
Water and Climate Change resilient youth champions and communities in Hindon River basin project was successfully concluded with the Hindon Mela held on 24 February 2018.
Aiming to raise awareness on the criticality of not wasting water in the islands and beyond, GWP-Med launched a new campaign titled #savewater at the beginning of summer in Greece.