GWP West Africa took part in the regional workshop to validate the sub regional report on the West African process of the 7th World Water Forum on "Risk and uncertainty management for resilience and preparedness to disasters".
GWP South America recently organised the first Latin American workshop on International Waters Law. The initiative is a collaboration with GWP Central America and aims to encourage improved international cooperation on water governance.
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.
Due to a growing need within the region for countries to agree on a water-related research agenda and themes, and to avoid duplication in research, a workshop on developing a Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Water Research Agenda was held at St. George Hotel in Pretoria, South Africa from the 8th to the 9th of April 2015. The workshop was planned and organised conjointly by SADC and WaterNet with the cooperation of GWP SA.
As part of the implementation of the West African component of the Integrated Drought Management Programme (IDMP-WAf), Mali Country Water Partnership (CWP Mali) organized on 12 and 13 June 2015 the validation workshop of the review of initiatives in the area of drought in the country.
The opening ceremony was marked by the welcome address of the representative of GWP / WA, the vice chair of CWP Mali and the opening speech of the National Director of Hydraulics.
With global change projections pointing to increasing water scarcity and drought in the Mediterranean, which are bound to cause significant environmental and socio-economic impacts, the development of a new management approach for water basins by integrating scientific thinking with sociological considerations seems essential.
The Integrated Drought Management Project in West Africa (IDMP-WA) made its internal assessment of the first year of project implementation and discussed the existing national plans during a meeting.
The meeting, held in Ouagadougou from 8 to 10 December 2015 was an opportunity to discuss the main actions undertaken during the first year of implementation of the project. Among these actions the review in detail of the initiatives / institutions in Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and at regional level, starting the establishment of national and regional platforms of exchanges on integrated drought management, the development by CWP and their partners of demonstration project documents, the identification of training needs for stakeholders and also the preliminary exchanges with the ECOWAS/WRCC to advocate for the development of regional guidelines ondrought.
The Integrated Drought Management Programme (IDMP) is a joint initiative of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Global Water Partnership.
GWP WAF took part in the Volta Basin Authority’s (VBA) workshop to validate the baseline study on the socio economic and environmental situation of the basin updated with a focus on the hydrological network to establish a network for the maintenance.