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The Paris Climate Conference will take place in Paris in December 2015 (COP21). Governments, particularly sensitive to environmental and climate issues, are expected to commit the fate of the planet during the COP21.

The Minister of the City, Youth and Sports, Mr Patrick KANNER, also co-chairman of the board of OFQJ is actively acting to ensure that youth is also engaged in public policy for sustainable development.

GWPEA has a cumulative membership of over 300 registered partners from the 9 Country Water Partnerships. Most of these partners' scope of work is hinged against Water Security and Climate Change management although organizations dealing in other sectors which are closely related to climate change can also apply.

GWP Chair Dr. Ursula Schaefer-Preuss participated in the Sixth Meeting for High-level Experts and Leaders Panel on Water and Disasters (HELP) and the Second UN Special Thematic Session on Water and Disasters in New York, USA, in November.

“Many activities had been done and showed progress in the past five years, but there are also still remaining a lot of challenges and many IWRM activities need to be done in the coming years. However, the new phase of strategy implementation has to be improved and aligned with national natural resources strategy and other water related sector plans as well as the 8th national socio-economic development plans of the government 2016-2020” said Mr. Thoumma Saluemxay, Deputy Director General of Department of Water Resources, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.

The workshop on 26 May 2015 highlighted that The Lao National Water Resources Strategy and Action Plan 2011-2015 implementation and development is very crucial for water sector collaboration among stakeholders in the country since the last five years of review.

Responding to the dramatic increase in extreme weather events and mega disasters is one of the great challenges of the Limpopo River Basin. Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is a top priority for the basin as it seeks to hold back the tide of rising economic and human losses through flood and droughts. To reduce risks from such disasters, GWPSA has over the past 2 years been involved in the development of a disaster risk reduction action plan for the Limpopo Basin. This Plan of Action presents a strategy for integrating disaster risk reduction into the Limpopo transboundary level operations. As part of the process to developing the plan, GWPSA held a workshop on the 5^th of April, 2016, to validate the draft DRR action plan of the Limpopo Basin. 

The first draft of the national studies in Benin, Burkina and Niger on the identification of development priorities in the Mekrou Basin have been submitted to the Project Manager. These drafts were forwarded to the Project Management team as well as to the international consultant recruited by GWPO to make a coherence in the national studies. The international consultant is to ensure the national consultants’ work comply with the Terms of Reference and create a coherence between the three studies.

 

GWP has published its Annual Report for 2014, highlighting network achievements across all regions. GWP China and other 12 regional partnerships have the highlights in the report.

From 26 to 31 January 2015, the Chair of GWP-WA, Pr. Abel AFOUDA and the Network Officer for West Africa, Mr. Manuel FULCHIRON were having a working visit at the Regional Secretariat. For the first meeting of the New Year, the Chair expressed his good wishes in the hope that this year will be shining for GWP-WA to support CWP for greater visibility in the countries.