At the SADC Water Week in Mozambique held from 20-22 May, 2015, stakeholders discussed the challenging aspects of managing water resources in the country in view of Mozambique sharing a number of river basins with its neighbours. For instance, the supply of water for the river basins located in the southern part of the country is heavily dependent on the Basins of international rivers. The solution to this challenge was seen in Mozambique requiring to always adapt an integrated water resources management approach and having long-term cooperative arrangements with its neighbours to avoid water availability being a constraint on future growth.
The Global Water Partnership – Mediterranean (GWP-Med) contributed to a key UNESCO handbook on science diplomacy and transboundary water management published in late 2015, focusing on the Orontes River case in Lebanon; this was the outcome of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) project “New technologies for an integrated and sustainable management of natural resources in Lebanon” financially supported by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
GWP China Yellow River, jointly with Yellow River Institute of Hydraulic Research and Yellow River Research Society, invited stakeholders from governmental organizations and NGOs as well as related experts and practitioners to discuss how to make better practice of integrated river basin management of the Yellow River under the new policies on November 20 and 21, 2013 in Zhengzhou, Henan Province.
Stakeholders concerned with water management and food security recently gathered for the First World Irrigation Forum in Turkey. A GWP delegation participated and discussed future collaboration possibilities with forum organiser ICID (The International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage).
Climatic conditions of Poland are characterized by small amount of precipitation that is relatively favourable distributed during a year. Most of the precipitation occur during summer, which is the period with the highest demand for water. Despite this fact, in most of the country (except the seaside and the highest mountains) a significant deficit of water can be observed.
A one day sensitization workshop took place on 30 July 2013 in Banjul, Gambia. The meeting brought together about twenty (20) journalists from various media houses and freelance journalists from The Gambia with the aim to inform participants on the ratification process of the UN 97 Law on the use of international watercourses for purposes other than navigational in the country.
The capacity needs for youth on IWRM in Lao PDR is strongly needed to advocate the knowledge and skills which they can further support and disseminate among their specific groups in the schools, universities and communities. Youth has more creative ideas and lots of activities related to environmental protection as well as some of water protection – water saving campaign, etc.
The Global Water Partnership – Mediterranean (GWP-Med) will have a strong presence at the 7th World Water Forum in Daegu and Gyeongju, in South Korea, on April 12-17, 2015.
GWP has been requested by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) to support the preparations for the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) in March 2015 in Sendai, Japan. With inputs from its partners, GWP led the development of a brief on Water and Disaster Risk.
Australia implemented a series of reforms to the water sector in the State of Queensland, including the use of a ‘whole of river basin’ strategic plan approach within which local resource operation plans are prepared and implemented. The key lesson learnt is that an incremental approach, with water planning developing in “bite-sized chunks” allowed government to be flexible in response to changing circumstances.