Up to 300 participants from more than 30 countries were gathered for the Gender, Water and Development Conference, 7-11 November in East London, South Africa. The conference is organised as a step towards an on-going journey to change equality, equity and development in the water sector.
The first consultation workshop of the Water Policy Dialogue in Palestine, within the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) labelled project Governance & Financing for the Mediterranean Water Sector was held in close cooperation with the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA), on 13 November 2014, in Ramallah. With more than 40 key stakeholders from the government; private companies and banks; research institutes and Academia; media as well as the Civil Society actively participating, the workshop marked the official launch of the Policy Dialogue to be conducted by GWP-Med within the period 2014-2015.
Danka Thalmeinerova is Senior Knowledge Management Officer at the GWP global secretariat in Stockholm. She joined the global secretariat in 2008 but has a long history with GWP before that – both at regional and country level. In the on-going interview series to mark GWP’s 20th Anniversary, Thalmeinerova speaks about her job: “I did not envisage how inspiring but challenging this would be.”
In Burkina Faso the first version of the 'Preparatory report on national consultations on water and food security" is completed. The national sharing and validation workshop is planned for late August 2015. The Country Water Partnership is discussing with the appropriate Ministry for the joint organization of the workshop.
In Mali the National Consultation Workshop on Water and Food Security in Mali, led by CWP MALI has already been organized. A follow up meeting for the ownership of the content of the report is scheduled with the Ministry for Food Security and a number of technical services in Mali to make sure the country has a contribution to the next CSA meeting in Rome.
The eighth session of the learning group in Burkina Faso was held on 28 and 29 July 2015 in the Conference Room of the Directorate General of Water Resources (DGRE). The learning group of Burkina Faso (GAB) is a platform for sharing experiences, knowledge and skills of the water sector actors created in 2011 on the initiative of the Learning Centre on Water Resource Management (RLC-WRM). It brings together NGOs / Associations of the water sector, networks of organizations, development partners, research institutions and state structures. The Country Water Partnership (CWP) Burkina represents the GWP network within the learning group.
On March 8th, 2015, the Global Water Partnership (GWP) which comprises of thirteen (13) Regional Water Partnerships including the Global Water Partnership-Caribbean (GWP-C) will celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD) by advocating for a #watergoal, which would mean major improvements in living conditions for women worldwide. GWP's Chair Ursula Schaefer-Preuss points out that there is a close connection between women and water.
The government of Lao PDR is working very constructively to improve the water resources planning and management system in Lao PDR especially in the formal higher education system.
Through the Lao Water Partnership, Mr. Chanthanet Boualapha, Director General of Department of Water Resources, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment who acts as chairperson of Lao Water Partnership opened the consultation on mainstreaming the IWRM in the formal higher education system. He expressed on the important of IWRM progress and application in Laos context for a decade as well as capacity building on this field. He also addressed the importance of the strengthening the local capacity in the whole country for IWRM decentralization and human resource development including emphasizing on integration and mainstreaming IWRM /IRBM approach into education system in each level.
The States of the world will make two fundamental decisions in 2015:
- In September, they will set their strategic priorities for the next 15 years through the post 2015 Agenda;
- In December, they will finalize in Paris their climate roadmap during the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21).
WACREP training mannuals and presentation are being used by Country Water Partnerships in tarinings and conferences for advocating better water resource management amongest the targetted populations. These materials can be downloaded for free from our website.