The 16th WaterNet/WARFSA/GWP-SA Symposium was held on the island of Mauritius at Le Méridien Hotel from the 28 to 30 of October 2015 under the theme ‘Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and Infrastructure Planning for Water Security in Southern Africa’. The University of Mauritius, a GWPSA partner was the lead host of the Symposium. The Symposia has been held annually in the Eastern and Southern African region for the past 15 years to promote interaction among policymakers, academics, practitioners from water and related sectors, and cooperating partners.
The Regional Coordinator, Mr. Dam MOGBANTE and Network Officer, mr. Manuel FULCHIRON made a mission in Accra, Ghana where they met with the regional office for Africa of the UN Food and Agriculture organization (FAO). The meeting aimed at informing and trying to secure partnership for the nexus « food security, water, food and ecosystem ». GWP shared its experience in particular on the country dialogs undertaken in 2015 in the context of the UN CFS work stream on water and food security as well as the envisaged follow up on water and food security in Africa.
On 26 March 2015, the Burundi CWP held its ordinary statutory general assembly meeting in Bujumbura to discuss several issues icluding review of progress towards activity achievement for the year 2014 and strategy for the implementation of Bu CWP’s Action Plan for the year 2015.
If you are part of the GWP network, chances are that you have met GWP Head of Network Operations, Jacques Rey. He is coordinating GWP programmes in the global secretariat in Stockholm, and has been involved from the beginning of GWP, way back in 1996. Here he reflects on his history with the network.
A capacity building workshop focusing on project preparation and financing in Zimbabwe for climate resilient projects was held at Monteclair Hotel in Nyanga from the 26th to the 28th of July 2015. The workshop was attended by 21 participants from selected government Ministries, such as the Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate (MEWC). The workshop was aimed at equipping selected participants with information, knowledge and practical skills in the preparation of proposal writing involving mini hydro projects for possible funding. The feasibility study focused on Siya Dam mini hydro power generation project.
Following a period of unusual heavy monsoon precipitation that started in mid-July and continue into August 2015, Myanmar experienced the most severe flooding in decades. The rainfall is associated with the south-west Monsoon, which occurs each year, but the situation got worse after the land fall of Cyclone Komen in Bangladesh on 30th July 2015 which brought strong winds and additional heavy rain to (north) Myanmar.