10-11 December 2011 Almaty, Kazakhstan
The Council Meeting was hosted by CWP Kazakhstan. The RC meeting was attended by all eight Council members and some regional TEC members from all eight countries, and regional Secretariat. The following issues were discussed during meeting:
The Maltese Islands have limited freshwater resources and depend heavily on desalination. Therefore there is an evident need to mobilise non conventional Water Resources (NCWR) in order to secure water availability and facilitate sustainable development.
Romania's water resources, being formed of surface waters – inland rivers, lakes and reservoirs, the Danube River – and groundwater are relatively poor and unequally distributed in time and space.
Estonia lies along the Baltic Sea, just south of Finland and has a climate of icy, snowy winters and long light summers.
In Ukraine, lack of permanent access to clean drinking water is an important environmental, as well as a health issue, which is one of the most water deficient countries in Europe with less then 1,000 m3 per capita per year.
The DIKTAS Project (2010 – 2014) is initiated by the aquifer-sharing states and is a full-size GEF regional project, implemented by UNDP and executed by UNESCO. The activities of the project focus on Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro. Several other countries and international organizations have also joined this challenging project and provide valuable contribution to realisation of its objectives.
West Africa now has 12 Country Water Partnerships (CWP). All ECOWAS countries have one except The Gambia, Liberia and Sierra Leone. In 2009 contacts were established with these countries and strong demand had been expressed to assist in the implementation of the CWP in each country.
Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI), the national supplier of water and sanitation services in Guyana
and long-standing partner of Global Water Partnership-Caribbean (GWP-C) decided to focus its participation at the 2011 International Building Expo on educating thousands of Guyanese about the benefits of rainwater harvesting as a means of water conservation.
In light of the recent development of its Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) model in 2010, Global Water Partnership-Caribbean (GWP-C) has and continues to engage in a series of public education activities targeted at building awareness on rainwater harvesting as a means of water conservation.
The 3rd China-Caribbean Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum was held in Trinidad on September 12th – 13th, 2011.