At the SADC Water Week in Mozambique held from 20-22 May, 2015, stakeholders discussed the challenging aspects of managing water resources in the country in view of Mozambique sharing a number of river basins with its neighbours. For instance, the supply of water for the river basins located in the southern part of the country is heavily dependent on the Basins of international rivers. The solution to this challenge was seen in Mozambique requiring to always adapt an integrated water resources management approach and having long-term cooperative arrangements with its neighbours to avoid water availability being a constraint on future growth.
The International Land Coalition (ILC), Global Water Partnership (GWP) and International Water Management Institute (IWMI) has brought together land and water professionals, researchers and policy makers to reflect on the linkages between water and land in the emerging geopolitics of food, and to discuss cases from global, regional, basin, national or local levels, where these linkages were successfully addressed in legal frameworks, policy, and/or practice. The workshop is being held in Pretoria from 15 – 16 June 2015.
A special day session was organized on May 5, 2015 just before the Partners meeting held on 7 and 8 May 2015 in Cotonou, Benin. The session aimed at all the representatives of Country Water Partnerships (CWP) invited for the Assembly of Partners but focused mainly on countries where the three projects are being carried out: Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali and Niger.
Following the information day on the Francophone youth for water project in Korea on April 13, 2015 and the orientation day in Cotonou on May 8, actions are continuing with the World Youth Parliament for Water (WYPW). Each of the youth developed roadmap activities to be undertaken for the implementation of this "Francophone Youth for Water" initiative at country level.
After a brief and comprehensive analysis of the situation in the area of drought in West Africa, the IDMP continues approaches in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger to conduct national reviews of initiatives, current or less than three (3) years plans and strategies in all three countries.
The GWP Technical Committee, in collaboration with the International Land Coalition (ILC) and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), organized a workshop on the “Global Food Security Challenge through Coordinated Land and Water Governance”. The event took place 15-16 June in Pretoria, South Africa.
Madagascar held its SADC Water Week on the 3rd, 4th and 5th June at the Ivato Conference Centre in Antananarivo. This event was held in high esteem given the present context in Madagascar. In fact, it has just been about 17 months since Madagascar was welcomed back in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). On Wednesday the 3rd, a joint session was held for media experts and the youth to provide them with some relevant background information on this SADC initiative. The meeting brought together youth from the water sector and beyond, as well as media experts from various ministries, some NGOs, civil societies and academic institutions.
National consultations towards consolidating Madagascar’s input into the RSAP formulation were held at the Ivato Conference Centre (CCI) on 4th and 5th June in Antananarivo. It saw the attendance of more than 200 various national stakeholders from all water-related sectors in Madagascar. Media experts as well as youth were fully represented.
Mauritius joined the other SADC countries in providing input to the 4th phase of the Regional Water Programme by holding a workshop in the context of the SADC Water Week on 3 and 4th June 2015. The meeting held at Voilà Hotel in Bagatelle was opened by Mr. Ivan Collendavallo, Minister of Energy and Public Utilities, and attended by 60 stakeholders from the water sector, supporting sectors, media and youth.