World Rivers Day is observed each year on the last Sunday of September and it is a celebration of the world's waterways. It highlights the many values of rivers and strives to increase public awareness and encourages the improved stewardship of rivers around the world. Rivers in virtually every country face an array of threats, and only through our active involvement can we ensure their health in the years ahead.
The Global Water Partnership (GWP) has sponsorship available for eligible participants to complete the online course in "Integrated and Adaptive Water Resources Planning, Management and Governance" offered by McGill University’s Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
The beauty and wilderness of Danube floodplains was continuously deteriorated by human impacts. Construction of the Gabcikovo water dam caused direct clearance of minimum 2,500 ha of floodplain forests and influence of water regime of other areas. A regional NGO BROZ located in Slovakia, has developed a project for EU funding scheme LIFE. The project aims to preserve last remaining natural floodplain forests in Slovak part of the Danube floodplain and to introduce sound, sustainable forest management in the area. As a result, a Sustainable Forest Management Strategy has been elaborated to give a base for new forest management plans.
GWP West Africa, Eau Vive (a French NGO), IRC, the municipality of Dori in Burkina Faso and other partners celebrated the World Water Day in Dori (northern part of Burkina) by paying a tribute to GWP WA's former Chair Honorable Hama Arba Diallo who passed away on 31 October 2014. A series of activities were done starting with a panel discussion on the topic « Leadership for the access to water and sanitation, the role and place of local officials : Example of Hama Arba Diallo ».
The below papers are proceedings papers from a workshop on the linkages between water and land in the emerging geopolitics of food. It was held in Pretoria 15 – 16 June 2015 by the International Land Coalition (ILC), Global Water Partnership (GWP) and International Water Management Institute (IWMI).
A training workshop was organized in Tunis, in the framework of the Water, Climate, Development Program for Africa (WACDEP), on 20-23 October; the second one out of a series of five training workshops composing the capacity building program “The Economics of Adaptation, Water Security and Climate Resilient Development”. This series of workshops follows the Framework cycle developed under WACDEP for water security and climate resilience.
The regional workshop of the Consultative Committee of the Global Cooperation Mechanism for the Mékrou Project for the validation of the reports of various baseline studies conducted in 2014 and 2015 and to agree on the broad guidelines for the implementation of activities for the next year was held on 14, 15 and 16 July 2015 in Cotonou, Benin.
Based on country studies on Local Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Practices (LIKSP) and how they contribute to enhancing climate resilience in each of the 14 countries in the SADC region, Qandelihle Simelane (regional consultant of LIKSP studies) gave a regional summation from country studies undertaken in the region during the 6th SADC River Basin Organisations (RBOs) Workshop held from the 15th to the 17th of October 2014 at Birchwood Hotel, Johannesburg, South Africa under the theme “Strengthening Regional Cooperation and Resilience in Water Related Disasters.”
In Burkina a national workshop was organized in February to validate the National Adaptation Plan to Climate Change (NAP). This workshop brought together a hundred participants to review the final version of the NAP document that integrated the amendments made by the workshop of April 1, 2014 including those on water security, water has been integrated as a cross cutting sector. The principle of integrating water as central and cross cutting to all other sectors, thanks to the facilitation work from WACDEP, is one of the improvements of the document. The link is made between water and each priority area in the plan.
The Minister of Environment and Fisheries, in his opening remarks delivered by the Secretary General, addresses thanks to the Country Water Partnership of Burkina, through WACDEP for its very important role, both technical and financial, played in the development process of the National Adaptation Plan of Burkina Faso.
The document will adopted by the Cabinet in the Council of Ministers and then submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention as the NAP for Burkina Faso.
In Burkina a national workshop was organized in February to validate the National Adaptation Plan to Climate Change (NAP). This workshop brought together a hundred participants to review the final version of the NAP document that integrated the amendments made by the workshop of April 1, 2014 including those on water security, water has been integrated as a cross cutting sector.