The 1st Regional Conference of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) labelled project Governance & Financing for the Mediterranean Water Sector was organised on 28-30 October 2014, in Athens, Greece, by the Global Water Partnership- Mediterranean (GWP-Med), in close collaboration with the EU funded Sustainable Water Integrated Management-Support Mechanism (SWIM-SM) project. It convened more than 110 decision makers; representatives of government; civil society; the private sector; international organisations; donors and financing institutions.
The 2015 Working Conference and the Sub-regional Consultation Meeting of GWP China were organized on February 9 and 10, 2015 in Beijing.
Australia implemented a series of reforms to the water sector in the State of Queensland, including the use of a ‘whole of river basin’ strategic plan approach within which local resource operation plans are prepared and implemented. The key lesson learnt is that an incremental approach, with water planning developing in “bite-sized chunks” allowed government to be flexible in response to changing circumstances.
The World Water Forum 7 is happening in Korea this year from 10-18th April 2015. The theme is ‘Water for Our Future’. The key focus will be on the Sustainable Development Goals and water security.
As part of a two-day Meeting of Regional Partners in Water and Wastewater, GWP Caribbean, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Caribbean Regional Coordinating Unit (UNEP-CAR/RCU) and the Global Environment Facility’s Caribbean Regional Fund for Wastewater Management (GEF CReW) partnered to host a special Knowledge Sharing Session on New Tools and Resources for Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in the Caribbean.
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.
A validation workshop of the Africa Ministerial Council on Water (AMCOW) Sub-Regional Report for the World Water Forum 7 took place on 15th 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.
Global institutions are still in the learning phase when it comes to successfully managing water and energy in an integrated manner as part of the quest for sustainable development. According to World Bank official Daryl Fields, understanding the water-energy nexus is critical for addressing growth and human development, urbanisation and climate change, but many policy-makers are finding it challenging to transform this concept into a reality. Fields, who is also a Technical Committee member of the Global Water Partnership, was speaking at a recent meeting of the GWP Consulting Partners, held in Trinidad for the first time.