Search

The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on climate change (IPCC) states in its summary for policy makers that integrated water resources management (IWRM) is a key part of adaptation experiences in several regions. “This shows that GWP’s and its partners’ advocacy efforts to explain how IWRM is the way forward for building water security and climate resilience are bearing fruit,” says GWP Executive Secretary Dr. Ania Grobicki.

GWP has published its Annual Report for 2014, highlighting network achievements across all regions. “2014 was a rich and inspiring year. We significantly increased the visibility of our growing network at the local, regional, and global level,” wrote GWP Chair Dr. Ursula Schaefer-Preuss in her introduction.

Sustainable Water Integrated Management – Support Mechanism (SWIM-SM), the largest water-related regional project supported by the European Commission (EC) during 2010-2015, successfully concluded its phase I, and held its Final Steering Committee (SC) Meeting in Luxembourg, on the 25^th of November. With a budget of 7.7 million Euros, the project was implemented in nine south Mediterranean countries[1] by a consortium led by LDK and with GWP-Med as the project technical director.

The Global Water Partnership Southern Africa (GWPSA) conducted a special session on ‘Conversion and Conveyance of Limpopo Basin Development Challenge (LBDC) Research results’. The session was held on the 29th October 2014, during the 6th WaterNet/WARSFA/GWPSA Symposium, in Lilongwe, Malawi.

The 1^st Regional Conference of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) labelled project “Governance & Financing for the Mediterranean Water Sector” will be held on 28-30 October 2014, in Athens, Greece, in close collaboration with the EU funded “Sustainable Water Integrated Management - Support Mechanism” (SWIM-SM) project.

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.

Five partner institutions are organising a joint training on International Water Law (IWL) in Africa. The experiences and lessons learnt will be used as a pilot to develop a 5-year-long (2016-2020) training programme on IWL, with the aim to improve transboundary water management in Africa. Interested candidates are welcome to apply for funded training before 25 June 2015.

The extent to which GWP has successfully fostered governance change is most explicitly captured through the monitoring of water governance outcomes, such as a new water policy, revised legislation, institutional reform or a transboundary agreement. All water governance outcomes to which GWP has contributed are assumed to lead to sustainable socio-economic benefits among the target populations through, for example, increased investment in appropriate infrastructure, empowerment of vulnerable groups and more sustainable use of resources.

A presentation on Gender Mainstreaming in the SADC Water Sector was made during the 6^th RBO workshop held on 15-17 October, 2014 at Birchwood Hotel in Johannesburg, South Africa. GWP SA has facilitated the organization of the RBO workshops, which are aimed at enhancing and building the ability of the RBOs to prepare, respond and recover from water related impacts (flood and droughts) and build resilience to climate change within the RBOs through all aspects, including gender mainstreaming.