An International Water Law workshop took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 16-20 November. The event promoted international cooperation and good transboundary water resources governance in the Amazon and Rio de la Plata basins.
Responding to the dramatic increase in extreme weather events and mega disasters is one of the great challenges of the Limpopo River Basin. Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is a top priority for the basin as it seeks to hold back the tide of rising economic and human losses through flood and droughts. To reduce risks from such disasters, GWPSA has over the past 2 years been involved in the development of a disaster risk reduction action plan for the Limpopo Basin. This Plan of Action presents a strategy for integrating disaster risk reduction into the Limpopo transboundary level operations. As part of the process to developing the plan, GWPSA held a workshop on the 5th of April, 2016, to validate the draft DRR action plan of the Limpopo Basin.
Conventions have been with the CWP of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger to allow the implementation of pilot projects in the countries during 2016 and continue the consultation meetings of national and regional platforms in the area of Integrated Drought Management.
The Project Manager has seized the opportunity and visited the pilot villages in the rural town of Gouendo in Mali where Mr. Boureima DIARRA, the mayor of the rural town said that "It is always better to teach us how to fish than to give us the fish".
The sixth statutory meeting of the Assembly of Partners of Global Water Partnership West Africa (GWP-WA) was held on 7 and 8 May 2015 in Cotonou, Benin. The theme of the meeting was " The challenge of the post-2015 Development Agenda in Africa: what role for Partnerships in the context of Climate Change?'. Organized by the GWP Regional Secretariat in collaboration with the Ministry of Energy, petroleum exploration, mining, water and renewable energy, and the Country Water Partnership of Benin, it was under the patronage of the Minister.
In collaboration with the White Volta Basin Office of the Water Resources Commission (WRC), the Ghana Country Water Partnership (CWP-Ghana) has carried out the validation workshop for the report of the study on "Socio economic and environmental analysis and Logical framework development of field interventions for building community resilience in the White Volta River Basin".
The Paris Climate Conference will take place in Paris in December 2015 (COP21). Governments, particularly sensitive to environmental and climate issues, are expected to commit the fate of the planet during the COP21.
The Minister of the City, Youth and Sports, Mr Patrick KANNER, also co-chairman of the board of OFQJ is actively acting to ensure that youth is also engaged in public policy for sustainable development.
As part of the preparation of a national workshop on Climate Services to provide priority areas defined by the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS), GWP/WA participated to the national meeting in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso initiated by the Coordinator of GFCS for the Sahel region.
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.