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 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.
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.
The village communities of Tampizua II in the Bawku Municipality and Azum Sapelga in the Binduri district of Northern Ghana are very happy with the field demonstration project being implemented in their communities. Located on the borders of the White Volta River these communities are experiencing various unfortunate situations such as floodings that are affecting their livelihoods because of climate related factors.
Global Water Partnership Southern Africa attended training on the application of Environmental Flows in the management of transboundary river basins in Southern Africa, with a special focus on the Pungwe River Basin. The training which brought together about 20 participants was an IUCN initiative and was held from 30th November to 3rd December in Cape Town, South Africa. The main parties involved were the government representatives of both Mozambique and Zimbabwe who share the river Basin and therefore needed to come together and agree on the Environmental Flows requirements to ensure equitable socio-economic development and growth.
The National Climate Change Response Strategy (NCCRS) that was adopted in July 2014 was officially launched by the Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa on the 19th of November 2015 at Rainbow Towers Hotel in Harare, Zimbabwe. The launch was attended by senior government officials, representatives from different organisations in the water sector and the local leadership drawn from the 9 Provinces around the country. The launch came at a time when Zimbabwe is stepping up efforts towards climate change adaptation and mitigation as witnessed by the development of the Strategy and the Intended National Determined Contributions (INDCs) to support the process.
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.”
GWP and its partners, the African Union Commission (AUC) and African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW), hosted a High Level Panel on Water and Climate Change in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Paris on 2 December.
The Limpopo River Basin (LRB) which has a total population of 18 million with 15 million in South Africa, 1.2 in Botswana, 1.1 million people in Mozambique, 0.8 million in Zimbabwe is prone to natural disasters as a result of climate change. Therefore, on the 24th of November, 2015, Resilience in the Limpopo Basin Program (RESILIM) in partnership with Global Water Partnership Southern Africa (GWP SA) undertook an in-country consultation workshop on the development of the Limpopo River Basin Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Action Plan.