The Ghana Country Water Partnership organised 30th Steering Committee meeting on 18th May, 2016 at the conference room of the Water Resources Commission. The main purpose of the meeting was to start discussions on the preparation towards WACDEP 2. In all, there were 7 members present at the meeting representing Ghana Irrigation Development Agency (GIDA), Water Resources Commission (WRC), Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA), ProNet and Volta River Authority (VRA). The meeting was chaired by Mr. Ben Ampomah.
The Global Water Partnership – Mediterranean (GWP-Med) has established a formal agreement with the Department for Planning and Conservation of Agricultural Lands at the Tunisian Ministry of Agriculture towards integrating climate change considerations in water and soil conservation planning, under the WACDEP (Water, Climate & Development) Programme; and in this context, it has entered a very fruitful collaboration with the Ministry, as well as the Regional Department for Agriculture in Bizerte, in Tunisia’s North, using the Douimis Basin in the Bizerte Region as a pilot for the development of the climate change mainstreaming methodology.
GWP and four of its partner institutions are organising a joint training on International Water Law (IWL) in Africa. The training will take place in Kampala, Uganda, 5-12 June 2016. It is open for up to 40 participants, and funding is available for 30 African-based participants.
The 11th edition of the Festival on the Niger was held from 4 to 8 February 2015 in Segou, Mali. This cultural event on the Niger River has become one of the flagship events of Mali. The theme for this year was "Culture and Employment: What cultural industry for Africa?». The night of the balafon, Festival on the Niger over the river, cultural caravan for peace, concerts on the river, the Segou symposium, professional artistic encounters, visual arts, theater and dance, international fair of Segou, Boromo of puppets Burkina Faso and the assistance of culinary art. These were the main activities that marked this event.
Global Water Partnership South Asia (GWP SAS) in collaboration with International Water Management Institute (IWMI) organised the first Webinar using Skype for Business to present the ‘Development of South Asia Drought Monitoring System (SADMS)’ on 30 September 2015.
Reflection workshop on « Sustainable livelihoods in wetlands in developing countries: the vision of the African youth” initiated by Water For Life Cameroon within the context of the celebration of World Wetlands Day and in partnership with GWP-CAf was held on February 3rd, 2016 in Yaoundé, Cameroun.
21 Participants drawn from 13 Cameroon youth led-organizations working for the protection of environment and research centers attended the workshop on wetlands.
The objective of the workshop was to raise awareness on the position of youth on the importance of the interdependence between human livelihoods and wetlands in urban and rural areas in order to catalyze change in the utilization of resources offered/generated by the wetlands.
In April 2016, Alice Bouman-Dentener was decorated by King Willem Alexander of the Netherlands as Knight in the Order of Orange Nassau. This is a civil and military Dutch order of chivalry open to everyone who has earned special merits through longstanding and exemplary contributions to society, both public and private.
Dr Jerome Delli Priscoli is the new Chair of the GWP Technical Committee. However, his history with the network goes back to 1996 at a meeting in Stockholm where GWP was conceived. “The work of GWP is born from a philosophy that is central to my own philosophy, which is a multi-stakeholder, participatory approach,” he says.
As part of the implementation of Mekrou project, and in order to lay the foundations for proper planning, a socio-economic survey will be carried out on households in the basin area in the 3 countries. An initial technical information and training workshop of country coordinators of these investigations was held in Cotonou from 18 to 20 November 2015.