At the end of last year, the GWP network consisted of 13 Regional Water Partnerships, 84 Country Water Partnerships, and 2,904 Partners located in 172 countries. The Annual Report for 2013 is now completed and available online.
On July 8, 2014, the Global Water Partnership China visited the School of Linzhi Agriculture of Tibet University and organized the conference to discuss the issues of water protection and water source management under the climate change.
Watersheds are essential to the livelihoods of humans. A significant portion of a society’s economic gain and overall survival is acquired through the ecosystem goods and services provided by watersheds. Jamaica as a Small Island Developing State (SIDS) has recently been facing increased stress and vulnerability to its water resources.
On March 22, 2015, in Shanghai, the World Water Day, the Forum on Water and Sustainable Development was organized jointly by the Society of Enterprises and Ecology (SEE) and Xingye Bank with the support of the UNESCO, WWF, MAB and GWP China as well as some companies such as Coco-cola, Wanko, Yikang, etc. More than 300 people attended the opening ceremony of the Forum.
The Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) of Trinidad and Tobago and the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, will host the first-ever Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) Research Symposium in Trinidad on July 15th and 16th, 2015 at The University Inn and Conference Centre in St. Augustine.
In Marocco, rapid urbanisation has led to increased demands for quality and quantity of water resources. To meet the challenges posed by the growing water scarcity, Morocco has adopted an integrated approach to water resources management through mutually reinforcing policy and institutional reforms, including the adoption of a long term IWRM strategy. The key lesson is the importance of introducing economic incentives to water management.
Water Supply and Sanitation policy in Vietnam is regulated through policy and a regulatory framework. However, the rural sanitation sector have had limited success and management has failed to be scaled up. To address these issues the Problem-Driven Governance and Political Economy Analysis Good Practice Framework was used to analyse the poor performance. The most important lesson is that not all policies are appropriate for scaling up.
The Mekong is the longest river in Southeast Asia, beginning its 4,200 km journey in the mountains of the Tibetan Plateau, passing six countries and reaching the South China Sea. Policy reforms to adopt integrated water resources management had been initiated and water related laws had been developed. However, there were still major gaps in the supporting knowledge and information. IUCN and its program Water &Nature Initiative (WANI) supported to scale up so called Tai Baan research (villagers’ research) that enabled local communities to represent their own social reality and through media and public forum, this knowledge can be mainstreamed into water management research and implementation.
The UN-Water annual Zaragoza Conference serves as preparation for the annual World Water Day. GWP representatives participated in several of the sessions.
The Global Water Partnership-Caribbean (GWP-C) is hosting a three (3) day national training workshop in St. Lucia on December 7th – 9th, 2015 entitled “Building Climate Resilience in the Caribbean Water Sector: An Integrated Water Resources Management Approach.”