The young parliamentarians acting through the National Youth Parliament for Water and Sanitation (PNJEA) of Benin, have organized on Thursday, October 29, 2015, in Cotonou an official ceremony to present the White Booklet to the Beninese authorities. The PNJEA also seized the opportunity to distinguish its godfathers and godmothers including the Minister of Water.
In his address to the participants during the official ceremony of the Integrated Drought Management Project in West Africa (IDMP-WAF), the Chair of GWP-WA, Pr. Abel AFOUDA made a vibrant plea inviting organizations represented at the workshop and other regional institutions and governments in the region to add their voice to the GWP in the campaign for a dedicated "Water Goal" in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be adopted in September 2015 on the occasion of the 70th ordinary Session of the UN General Assembly in New York.
The transboundary Buna / Bojana Watershed is shared by Albania and Montenegro, as well as a long stretch of coastal zone of the Adriatic Sea. The watershed is faced with a variety of pressures, including unsustainable agricultural methods, increased tourism, and altered hydrological regimes from hydropower generation and flood control measures. Albania and Montenegro, while similar socially and economically, differ in their administrative, legal, and institutional frameworks. Regardless, both countries have recognized the need to strengthen their cross-border cooperation through the development of an integrated water resource plan (the Plan) for the watershed.
The African Minister’s Council on Water (AMCOW) Secretariat, in collaboration with the Government of the Republic of Kenya and Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and Regional Economic Communities (RECs) together with Global Water Partnership (GWP) organised a Water Resources Management Priority Action Plan (WRM-PAP) validation meeting from the 16th to the 18th of May 2016. The validation meeting will be followed by a Consultation Meeting on the Draft Framework and Indicators for the Water and Sanitation Sector Monitoring and Reporting in Africa scheduled for the 19th and 20th of May 2016 in Nairobi, Kenya.
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.
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.