The seventh session of the Meeting of the Parties to the UNECE Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes took place on 17-21 November 2015 in Budapest, Hungary. GWP was represented with participants from several countries.
GWP Senior Knowledge Management Officer Dr. Danka Thalmeinerova conducted a training on the IWRM ToolBox in Sao Paolo, Brazil, on 9-10 December. The workshop was targeted at university lecturers from Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, and Brazil.
An International Water Law workshop took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 16-20 November. The event promoted international cooperation and good transboundary water resources governance in the Amazon and Rio de la Plata basins.
GWP Chair Dr. Ursula Schaefer-Preuss participated in the Sixth Meeting for High-level Experts and Leaders Panel on Water and Disasters (HELP) and the Second UN Special Thematic Session on Water and Disasters in New York, USA, in November.
From December 14 to 16, 2015, the “Regional Workshop on South-South Cooperation in Flood Management” was jointly organized by GWP China and GWPO in Guangdong, China.
The Chair of GWP West Africa, Prof. Abel AFOUDA accompanied by the Regional Coordinator and Communication took part in the GWP regional days 2015 in Stockholm from 22 to 25 November. This meeting was an opportunity to review the progress made by the global network in its fields of action and to make projections into the future. GWP and several partners express satisfaction since their efforts to have a water dedicated sustainable development goal come true. Discussions are underway to better position the network of partners in supporting countries to be successful in the implementation of the SDGs as a whole but especially the goal 6 with its different targets. Discussions at the regional days gathered ideas for a better positioning of GWP.
The WACDEP Regional Programme Manager undertook a mission on 6 November 2015 on the program demonstration site in the municipality of Loumbila in Nakanbé (Volta Basin) in Burkina Faso.
One of the key IDMP actions in West Africa is the establishment of the national platforms in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger and at regional level. These platforms will be used to discuss issues related to the integrated drought management. In Niger a meeting held on November 5 to set up the national platform on Integrated Drought Management (GIS) in the country. The finalization of the project document for the institutional framework of PGIS Niger was also discussed.
As part of the implementation of Mekrou project, and in order to lay the foundations for proper planning, a socio-economic survey will be carried out on households in the basin area in the 3 countries. An initial technical information and training workshop of country coordinators of these investigations was held in Cotonou from 18 to 20 November 2015.
On November 30, 1 and 2 December, the CWP Benin held in Parakou, a training session on IWRM and the integration process in the planning tools at local level targeting the elected officials and local stakeholders in the municipalities where WASH-Benin Program makes its interventions. The activity was financially supported of WASH-Benin Programme on the one hand with the technical facilitation of CWP Benin.