On September 22 and 23, 2014, the 2014 China GWP Toolbox Workshop for University Water Education sponsored by the GWPO and GWP China was organized by Hohai University.
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 Chair of GWP WAf, Pr. Abel AFOUDA had a working visit at the Secretariat from October 19 to 24, 2015. During his stay on Ouagadougou, the Chair met with the staff to have an update on the implementation of various activities and give his orientations for finalizing pending issues.
He was presented the templates for the monitoring and drafting of the work plans, the draft progress reports of the CORE and the three projects bein implemented (WACDEP, IDMP and Mekrou), the guidelines for elaborating the budgets lines for 2016. On all these Prof. AFOUDA gave some orientations. The decision was also taken to convene the virtual meeting of the Steering Committee to appreciate the various documents and give orientations to the Secretariat. This meeting will be done early in November 2015.
Within the context of implementation of WACDEP in central Africa, GWP Cameroon in collaboration with GWP-Caf organized in Douala, Cameroon, from August 26th - to 28th 2015 WACDEP project capacity building workshop for national institutions and water organizations on “project preparation related to water security and climate resilience”.
The 3 days’ workshop brought together planners in ministries from Cameroon, Chad and Gabon and water professionals from Country Water Partnerships like Cameroon, Central African Republic and Sao Tome and Principe.
The main objective of the workshop was, on the one hand to introduce stakeholders the different project preparation key steps, integrating water security and climate resilience in conformity with the funders’ requirements, to know better the financial institutions and also to plead for integrating water security and climate resilience into development planning process and on the other hand to develop no/low regret investment and financing strategies
Poor management and planning during the construction of the Bargi Dam created severe social issues. The affected people took action by coming together forming a Union, making demands for fishing rights and protesting against the complete filling up of the dam. These demands were eventually met. This case illustrates the need for proper dialogue and participation with the affected people during the plan stage of any development projects to prevent problems during execution.
Climate Change is expected to have severe impacts on river discharges and water quality and quantity. In an effort to proactively find solutions to the current and future challenges of water, the project Environmental state and sustainable management of Hungarian-Slovakian transboundary groundwater bodies was initiated. The key lesson is the importance of evaluating all resources, including the links between groundwater and surface water.
A sustainable sanitation workshop was held in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on 4-5 April. The event drew parallels among different toolboxes and programmes and enabled networking among experts in the GWP Central and Eastern Europe region.
Dr. Beatrice Mosello, from the Overseas Development Institute, shares her experience of the recent Water, Climate Development Programme training workshop in Addis Ababa, and her optimism for the integration of water security and climate resilience into development planning in Africa.
The Global Water Partnership (GWP) has sponsorship available for participants from partner organisations to complete the online course in “Integrated and Adaptive Water Resources Planning, Management and Governance” which is being offered by McGill University’s Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
The Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate (MEWC) in partnership with the Zambezi Watercourse Commission (ZAMCOM) organised the 1st Zimbabwe Stakeholders Committee for the Zambezi meeting on the 18th of September 2015. Water and Climate Change Programme (WACDEP) Zimbabwe team were among the 33 participants who converged at the Harare Safari Lodge to participate during the meeting.