On January 12th, 2010 a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit a point 15 km southwest of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. It led to more than 230 000 deaths and significant physical destructions. The response actions were limited by the underlying vulnerabilities that existed in the country prior to the event and by a lack of coordination among decision-makers. This study intended to improve the understanding of policy-makers, water and sanitation practitioners and researchers on the actions that have been taken and their outcomes in the water and sanitation sector in Port-au-Prince. It revealed that weak governance coupled with poor infrastructure can result in catastrophic scenarios after the occurrence of a disaster.
The 11th Global Water Partnership Southern Africa (GWP SA) Consulting Partners meeting will be held from the 13th to the 14th of October 2015 in Pretoria, South Africa. The meeting that is held after every two years brings together the GWP Partners in Southern Africa, GWP SA Board, Regional Technical Committee (RTEC) and the GWP SA Secretariat staff. Also invited are the Strategic Partners with whom GWP SA has programmatic alliances, but these are self-funded.
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.
The regional workshop of the Consultative Committee of the Global Cooperation Mechanism for the Mékrou Project for the validation of the reports of various baseline studies conducted in 2014 and 2015 and to agree on the broad guidelines for the implementation of activities for the next year was held on 14, 15 and 16 July 2015 in Cotonou, Benin.
Following the information day on the Francophone youth for water project in Korea on April 13, 2015 and the orientation day in Cotonou on May 8, actions are continuing with the World Youth Parliament for Water (WYPW). Each of the youth developed roadmap activities to be undertaken for the implementation of this "Francophone Youth for Water" initiative at country level.
The Global Water Partnership – Mediterranean (GWP-Med) will have a strong presence at the 7th World Water Forum in Daegu and Gyeongju, in South Korea, on April 12-17, 2015.
The GWP CACENA Regional Council Meeting was held on 3-7 August 2015 in Batumi, Georgia (Hotel Alik).
Water resources, in particular conventional rural water supply systems/sources are among the first to be impacted by climate variability. Accessibility to portable water in the sudano-sahelian part of Cameroon is a course for concern given that the population relies mainly on springs, wells and boreholes for the supply of potable water in rural areas.
The Inception Meeting of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) supported project “Enabling Transboundary Cooperation and Integrated Water Resources Management in the extended Drin River Basin” took place in Tirana, on 16 December 2015, at the presence of Mr. Edmond Panariti, Minister of Agriculture, Rural Development and Water Administration, Mr. Ferid Agani, Minister of Environment and Spatial Planning, as well as Mr. Stevo Temelkovski, Deputy Minister of Environment and Physical Planning.
