October 28-30, 2018, the Great Rivers Forum (GRF) took place at the Changjiang Civilization Museum in Wuhan, Hubei Province where is the base of the Changjiang/Yangtze River Commission in China.
Under the Strategic Goal 1 Catalyze Change, the WACDEP Programme of GWP China Region stresses cross-regional cooperation, sector plan optimization, investment on recycling renewable resources, south-south promotion and a good lesson of utilizing the water rights market.
As a follow up to several discussions held between representatives of the four Asian Regional Water Partnerships (RWPs) of Central Asia and Caucasus, China, South Asia and South-East Asia held since 2014 on how to work more closely together in areas of common interests to the region, the group organised workshops on thematic areas identified and prioritised by the RWPs. These workshops promoted exchange of experiences, knowledge sharing, capacity building, project development and other forms of cooperation on the common issues of the Pan Asia Region.
A two-day WACDEP workshop was held on 19-20 February 2018 in Ouagadougou to facilitate the implementation process of the Programme to achieve the expected results at regional level and in the beneficiary countries.
The West African Economic Monetary Union (WAEMU) held on 17 to 19 December 2018 a workshop in Ouagadougou to validate a study on the status of IWRM implementation in its eight (8) member states.
The contribution of the Zambezi River Basin to the socio-economic development of the basin’s riparian states and the SADC region has been applauded by Honourable Lloyd Kaziya, Zambia’s Minister of Water Development, Sanitation and Environmental Protection.
The UN theme of this year’s International Women’s Day (IWD 2018) relates to gender equality and activism, building on global movements such as #metoo and #TimeIsNow. For the water community we translated this to “Time is now for equality in water access and management!” and followed it up by asking women in the GWP network “How can activism empower women in the water sector?” These issues were also raised in a Facebook Live session on 8 March together with GWP Partner Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI).
The GWP Annual Report for 2017 – “GWP in Action 2017” – is available online. The report presents highlights from the entire GWP network. "The stories point in one direction: GWP is the multi-stakeholder partnership that delivers on SDG 6 implementation through an integrated approach to water resources management," says GWP Chair Oyun Sanjaasuren in her message in the report.
Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Mechanism was proposed by Chinese Primer Likeqiang ni the 17th China-ASEAN Leaders’ meeting held in November of 2015, which aims to strengthen all-round and friendly cooperation among China and Mekong countries and promote regional overall development. The First Lancang-Mekong (LMC) Foreign Ministers Meeting held in Jinghong, Yunnan Province of China in November of 2015 formally announced the establishment of the LMC Mechanism.
In partnership with the Council for Caribbean Science and Technology (CCST), Global Water Partnership-Caribbean (GWP-C) received a grant from the Perez-Guerrero Trust Fund (PGTTF) to finance a Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) project for the Caribbean.
