The inclusion of a water goal in the the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) puts the responsibility for linking water to other development sectors firmly in the hands of water policy makers and practitioners. GWP’s Technical Background Paper No. 22 addresses the implementation of the water goal in the context of an integrated, cross-sectoral approach.
The government of Lao PDR is working very constructively to improve the water resources planning and management system in Lao PDR especially in the formal higher education system.
Through the Lao Water Partnership, Mr. Chanthanet Boualapha, Director General of Department of Water Resources, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment who acts as chairperson of Lao Water Partnership opened the consultation on mainstreaming the IWRM in the formal higher education system. He expressed on the important of IWRM progress and application in Laos context for a decade as well as capacity building on this field. He also addressed the importance of the strengthening the local capacity in the whole country for IWRM decentralization and human resource development including emphasizing on integration and mainstreaming IWRM /IRBM approach into education system in each level.
A training of trainers capacity building workshop was held from 25 to 29 April 2016 on "drought risk reduction in the context of Integrated Water Resources Management" with the financial and technical support of Cap-Net. The course content focused on six (6) modules on Overview of drought / occurrence of droughts, vulnerability and IWRM (Module 1), Vulnerability and impacts of droughts (Module 2), Managing the risks of drought (Module 3), Characterization of droughts, temporal and special scale, monitoring and forecasting ((Module 4), Strategic Planning in IWRM for risk management of drought (Module 5), Preparing for drought, emergency management and post drought recovery (6. Module 6).
Water Security for Development
Water is the key to the world’s ability to cope with climate change. Whether it is food security, poverty reduction, economic growth, energy production or human health – water is the nexus. Climate change is the spoiler. No matter how successful mitigation efforts might be, people will experience the impacts of climate change through water.
GWP is responding to the climate change challenge through the Global Water, Climate and Development Programme that includes a portfolio of programs and projects that aim to build climate resilience through better water management.
As part of GWP’s outreach to its Partners, a GWP IWRM ToolBox workshop was held in Almaty, Kazakhstan on 22-23 April 2015. The workshop was targeted at universities from Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia, whose staff educate specialists in water management or related fields and sectors.
Preceded by a series of regional workshops in Africa, Latin America, South-East Asia and Central Asia organized by IUCN and IWA since 2012, the Symposium on Infrastructure Solutions in the Water-Energy-Food Nexus was taken place at the Beijing Friendship Hotel, starting on Thursday 13 November and ending on Saturday 15 November, 2014, in Beijing. GWP China was formally invited to be the co-sponsor of the symposium jointly with IUCN and IWA .
The Executive Secretary of GWP, Rudolph Cleveringa, says that GWP as a network needs to change: “We can’t use the same agenda as we did 20 years ago”. Approaching World Water Day 2016, Cleveringa takes a moment to reflect on GWP’s 20 years in the water world and talks about his vision on how to make the network fit for the future – local inclusion and diversity are words he uses to make his point.
The IDMP WAF has launched a consultation to recruit national experts in the project countries (Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger) to review drought management ongoing initiatives in each country.
The IDMP Project officer met also a delegation from the Danish Hydraulic Institute (DHI) to discuss area of collaboration mainly on the possiblity of carrying out the identification of microproject for demonstration in Burkina Faso. DHI is already working on inundation and drought management tools in the Volta Basin and the collaboration could build on this intiative.