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In the 2015accounts audit report, the auditor's conclusion was the following: "We believe that the financial report of the Regional Water Partnership for West Africa (GWP/WA) and the CWPs (Burkina and Ghana) accurately reflect the statement and financial position of the Regional Water Partnership for West Africa and the CWPs (Burkina and Ghana) as of 31^st December 2015, consistently with the GWP financial procedures.”

The way forward in 2016 is to strive to implement all partially implemented recommendations including those made in 2014 and those made as of 31^st December, 2015. It should be noted that almost all new recommendations dating from 31^st December 2015 have already been implemented prior to the finalization of the audit report in 2015 in Burkina Faso and for the region.

 

A training course on International Water Law (IWL) in Africa took place in Kampala, Uganda, in June. It was the second year running that GWP and its Partners organised the course, with the aim to strengthen transboundary water resources management in Africa. The training was appreciated by the participants who lauded its significance in improving water governance in basins.

GWP held a press briefing at the UNFCCC COP20 conference in Lima, Peru, on Tuesday 9 December. The delegates reiterated the GWP network’s firm support of a dedicated water goal on the post-2015 development agenda. The Water, Climate and Development Programme (WACDEP) was highlighted as an important tool to combat water related problems in connection with climate change.

In order to be able to achieve the long-term goal of the programme, it is necessary to fully understand the economics of water in a country, river basin or region under consideration. Without this knowledge it is impossible to determine the value of proposed investments or their related costs and benefits. Therefore, it is unlikely that it will be possible to package the required finance for the investment.

The goal of the Africa Water Investment Programme is to transform and improve the investment outlook for water security and sustainable sanitation for a prosperous, peaceful and equitable society. The AIP will strengthen the business case for investments in water security and climate resilience, and prepare bankable projects as instruments to stimulate transformative economic growth while addressing the root causes of migration, youth unemployment, and gender inequality. The AIP will promote innovative public private partnership models to unlock private sector investments in water, energy and agriculture as key pillars of Africa’s growth, development and employment creation agenda.

Sustainable management of any physical resource requires a good understanding of the distribution and quantities of that resource. Thus, information is highly valuable but it can be complex and hard to manage. Integrated management approaches in particular require massive amounts of spatially and temporally varying data from many different sectors: the quality and quantity of water resources; the geography of the area; the local geology and soil; the human communities; and the land use patterns is all important and interrelated information. One of the biggest challenges in IWRM today is to represent the full scope of this information, of the variables, interactions, and complexity that every water project and policy is confronted with. Analytical tools are needed to interpret the data in a way that makes it usable for decision makers. Models and Decision Support Systems (DSS) do exactly that.

Jharkhand is a new state, established in 2000, to support the rights of indigenous people to have a separate state for themselves. Jharkhand is home to many of the country’s poorest people, despite the city being located in one of the richest areas of India in terms of minerals and natural resources. Agriculture, as the sole economic activity in the area, has not been properly developed (e.g. water facilities are poor and access to upgraded and modern agriculture-based knowledge is limited) and the land is prone to severe droughts, marked only by erratic rainfalls. Therefore, starvation and malnutrition of its citizens is widespread.

Mr. Antoine Diokel THIAW was elected Chairperson of the Senegalese Country Water Partnership (CWP) to replace Professor Serigne FAYE. The event occured during the last Partenres' meeting held in Dakar on December 6th, 2014. The regional secretariat was represented by the chair, professor Abel AFOUDA.

In Niger, the CWP held its Partners' meeting on December 13, 2014 in Niamey. Various reports were adopted in addition to 2015 work plan and budget. Participants elected Professor Bouréima OUSMANE as new Chair to replace Dr. Yahaya TOUNKARA. The vice-chair is the General Director of water resources and Mr. HAROUNA Mouminou is in charge of communication and Mrs Halimatou Mamane as the treasurer.

In Burkina Faso, Mr. Dibi MILLOGO was elected as new chair to replace Mr. Dieudonné NIKIEMA. He will be seconded by Mr. Robert NANA as vice chair. The Meeting was held on December 19, 2014.

In Ivory Coast, partners renewed the mandate of Mr. Ndri Koffi as chair during the meeting held on December 18, 2014.

GWP West Africa would like to acknowledge the great contribution of Dr TOUNKARA, Mr. NIKYEMA and Prof. FAYE to the network life.

The programme started to address water scarcity in the Mediterranean. It was first launched in Greece (2008) and since then expanded in the Maltese Islands (2011), in Cyprus (2013), and in Italy (2015).