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Climate change is expected to severely affect water resources in the low-lying part of the Netherlands. It was decided to take an integrated approach and a process was set up in which all parties claiming space in the area were invited to discuss the water issues. The key insight from this case is the additional water needs can be integrated in the spatial planning through an open planning process. 

“An integrated approach to managing and developing the world’s water resources is vital for not only driving world economies, ensuring human well-being and security from hunger, but can also serve as an essential building block for enhancing coherence on adaptation,” said Dr. Ursula Schaefer-Preuss, Chair of GWP at a side event at the Bonn climate change negotiations. “Water is the connecting link because climate impacts are largely felt through the medium of water,” she said.

“An integrated approach to managing and developing the world’s water resources is vital for not only driving world economies, ensuring human well-being and security from hunger, but can also serve as an essential building block for enhancing coherence on adaptation,” said Dr. Ursula Schaefer-Preuss, Chair of GWP at a side event at the Bonn climate change negotiations. “Water is the connecting link because climate impacts are largely felt through the medium of water,” she said.

As part of GWP’s outreach to its Partners, a GWP IWRM ToolBox workshop was held in Almaty, Kazakhstan on 22-23 April 2015. The workshop was targeted at universities from Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia, whose staff educate specialists in water management or related fields and sectors.

After some devastating floods in the Yangtze, the Chinese government took action and issued a policy to counter floods, including wetland restoration. WWF further assisted and developed four pilot sites to demonstrate the benefits of wetland restoration for biodiversity, and to seek alternative income options for farmers, based on the sustainable use of wetlands. This case illustrates the value of a participatory approach. 

Water, which might appear as a gift from nature, actually needs huge human investment in order to serve the varied and growing global demand on this resource. Creating the investment structures and securing the funding to meet water needs is a key enabling factor to achieving good water governance.

Over the years, the people of Seychelles have had an increased access to an improved drinking water source. Statistics show that access to water stood at 88.9% in 1990 and at 97 percent in 2010 respectively. Similarly, indicators of access to improved sanitation show an increase from 78% in 1994 to over 97% in 2012.

Limited land space, high population densities and population growth, coupled with increased urbanisation has led to a  decline in freshwater and coastal water quality in the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) of the Caribbean.

A validation workshop of the Africa Ministerial Council on Water (AMCOW) Sub-Regional Report for the World Water Forum 7 took place on 15^th January 2015 at Birchwood Hotel, Johannesburg, South Africa. The workshop was aimed at obtaining technical alignment from country contributions at sub regional level, under a sub-regional workshop organized by the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC)– as a sub region secretariat of AMCOW.

GWP and the University of Dundee co-organised a workshop on International Law and Transboundary Freshwaters in Dundee in June. It was the third year of the joint GWP/Dundee Scholarship programme, and this year’s activities were a success, says the organisers.