In Uganda, the National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) provide most drinking water, however, this is predominantly in urban areas. Attempting to improve water provision in rural areas, a programme supported by the World Bank was initiated. The main action taken was to commercialising service delivery through public-private partnerships. Despite being viewed as a great success, this case study highlights that circumstances can change and thus be different from those anticipated during the bidding stage.
“It’s time for participating in the implementation of WACDEP activities in Lake Cyohoha catchment-” Governor tells stakeholders, in Kirundo Province, of Burundi, on the 25th of July 2013.
Rapid urbanisation has led to widespread settlements of floodplains, resulting in widespread vulnerability of livelihoods. Since traditional approaches are no longer sufficient, a more integrated flood management approach was realised to adapt to changing social, hydrological, and environmental conditions along the nation’s major waterways. Furthermore, the Ministry of Water Resources prepared a national flood management strategy. The crucial lesson is that the key to flood risk management is learning to live with flood risks.
In December, GWP Honduras helped organise a workshop on IWRM to contribute to the development of the annual plan for the management of rural water systems in southern Honduras.
The Toledo River basin is increasingly contaminated due to unsustainable agricultural practices, Action was taken through a UNESCO-IHP project aiming to perform an integrated environmental assessment of agricultural and farming production systems located in the Toledo River Basin. By using a multi-criteria approach, it was possible to highlight the interactions and use of natural capital, human-driven resources, and ecosystem services supporting agricultural and farming production systems.
To supply water to a growing population, an aqueduct was built in the watershed of El Limón River in Tovar municipality. However, this aqueduct does not provide sufficient supply, creating conflicts among the communities. To solve these, agreements on the use and conservation of water resources have been made among the communities, involving both rural villages and urban areas. This illustrates the benefits of a participatory approach.
On February 27-28, 2013, Global Water Partnership Southern Africa’s (GWPSA) Executive Secretary, Ms Ruth Beukman participated in the Post- 2015 Development Agenda Consultation on Water: Water Resources Management (WRM) and Wastewater Management & Water Quality (WWMWQ). Ms Beukman was invited by UN Water to be a panellist and was sponsored by UNECE to participate. The meeting was sponsored by the Government of Switzerland as part of the Thematic Consultation on Water, coordinated by UN-Water, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).
Activities such as horticulture and tourism around the Great Barrier Reef create sediment, nutrient and pesticide runoff, placing increased pressure on the ecosystem. The World Wildlife Fund has taken action, predominantly by raising awareness. The key lesson is how a carefully orchestrated campaign can convince decision-makers of the importance of integrated river basin management as a means of reducing land-based marine pollution.
There have been many dialogues and seminars on river pollution in the past 20 years or so. Generally everyone agrees that as a country, we desperately need to do something about the sad state of our rivers, especially when we hope to achieve developed nation status by 2020. However, we have not been successful in translating consensus at these forums into changes on the ground.
