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Experts meet in Delhi to discuss how South Asian countries could adopt the new drought monitoring system to better prepare and mitigate drought risks

Danka Thalmeinerova is Senior Knowledge Management Officer at the GWP global secretariat in Stockholm. She joined the global secretariat in 2008 but has a long history with GWP before that – both at regional and country level. In the on-going interview series to mark GWP’s 20^th Anniversary, Thalmeinerova speaks about her job: “I did not envisage how inspiring but challenging this would be.” 

In Sub Saharan Africa Climate Change is worsening an already alarming situation vis-à-vis food security and water resources and everyone has a responsibility to develop/ use appropriate means to address the issue.

Nine countries in Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Sudan, Uganda) carried out national consultations on water and food security whose outcomes were used by (or contributed for) the United Nations Committee on Food Security (UN CFS) to issue recommendations on Water and Food Security and Nutrition at the end of 2015 offering a strong basis for a new momentum.

The GWP’s annual Regional Days were took place in Stockholm from 10 to 13 May.

Three African countries on the High Level Panel on Water (HLPW)-South Africa, Mauritius, in collaboration with Senegal; with support from Global Water Partnership and its partners, will implement an Africa legacy initiative as a follow up on the recommendations and outcomes of the HLPW.

One of the key outcomes from the High-Level Panel on Water (2016-2018) was to establish a set of 5 principles on Valuing Water. Following from those recommendations, the Valuing Water Initiative (VWI) was created to support actors in putting those principles into practice. Since the beginning, GWP has been committed to promoting the Valuing Water Principles (VWPs) and using value-based approaches as part of its efforts towards improving water resources management. In collaboration with VWI, GWP supports events and consultation engagement processes at regional and global scales, mainstreams the VWPs in the design and implementation of IWRM plans, promotes the VWPs within its youth engagement initiatives, and develops knowledge products and methodologies related to Valuing Water.

The Africa Water Facility (AWF)/ African Development Bank (AfDB) and Global Water Partnership (GWP) are supporting the Development Plan and Feasibility Study for Urban Sanitation, Drainage and Solid Waste Management in Chimoio and Inhambane in Mozambique. The overall goal of the investments is to improve climate resilience and health in the two target municipalities. This will be achieved through improved services in sanitation, drainage and solid waste management, impacting in the form of reduced risk for flooding and improved health. From the 8th to the 16th March 2017, Representatives from GWP and AWF/ AfDB attended the project launch mission in Maputo, Chimoio and Inhambane.

On December 27, 2016, the Chair and Vice Chairs’ Working Meeting was taken place in Beijing.

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.

Within the framework of developing a full project proposal on the establishment of an Early Warning System in the Lake Chad Basin area, GWP-CAf and LCBC organized a workshop on the approval of the inception report on the strategy for conducting the assignment, and the deliverables to be produced by the team of consultants, charged to produce a full-fledged project document.  The workshop was held from 11-12 of July 2016 in Ndjamena, Chad.

 

The attendees to this meeting were 8 experts (in hydrology, climate change) and 4 support staff from the LCBC executive secretariat, 3 experts from German Cooperation groundwater and climate change adaptation projects, the coordinator of the programme to rehabilitate and strengthen the resilience of lake chad basin systems (PRESIBALT), 2 representatives of GWP Central Africa, and the team of three recruited consultants (2 experts of PEGASYS from South Africa and 1 independent consultant from Chad).

 

The main objective of this meeting was to present, enrich and approve the inception report on the strategy for conducting the assignment, and the deliverables to be produced by the team of consultants. It was also an opportunity for consultants to meet, share their experiences and strengthen their collaboration.