Climate change and the increasing number of competing water users have led to the overexploitation of the Pangani river basin resources. Action has been taken to establishing environmental, economic and social implications of different river flow scenarios under expected climatic conditions. This helped to prioritize the allocation of water resources to meet basic human needs and those of ecosystems. The main lesson learnt was that providing a platform for dialogue between key stakeholders and increasing knowledge about the climatic variability and future risk are essential for successful water management solutions.
Around 100 participants, representing 50 different organizations around Nigeria, attended the General Assembly of Partners of the Country Water Partnership of Nigeria held on 14 February 2013. The General Assembly was opened by the Minister of Water Resources Mrs. Sarah Reng Ochekpe, also co-Chair of AMCOW for West Africa, who urged GWP Nigeria to strengthen and expand their activities towards achieving adequate management of water resource in the country.
Regional priorities in groundwater management in West Africa are knowledge; environmental, social and economic aspects; irrigation and climate change; dialogue and communication; management and institutional aspects; and capacity building/improving competence.
The Global Water Partnership-Caribbean (GWP-C) hosted a National Stakeholder Consultation in Trinidad, on April 16th, 2014 which formed part of a global consultation exercise to get country level feedback from twenty-six (26) countries on proposals for a dedicated Water Goal in the United Nations (UN) Post-2015 Development Agenda.
The Detailed Assessment on the Capacity Building Needs in Mozambique (GWP, 2013) states that Mozambique is extremely vulnerable to climate related disaster such as floods, droughts and cyclones, with a recurrence frequency estimated at 1.67, meaning at-least one event occurs every year. Mozambique is also amongst the most affected countries by “large scale” natural disasters in the world. There is a great need therefore to build capacities in managing climate change. To address that need, the Global Water Partnership’s Water, Climate, and Development Programme (WACDEP) for Mozambique was formally introduced through a capacity building awareness workshop at a launch that was held in Maputo, Mozambique on the 18th March 2014.
“Building resilience of people, communities and countries to these water-related disasters and extreme climate events is the major challenge of our time, as climate change will get worse before it gets better,” were the closing words of the speech given by the GWP Chair Dr Ursula Schaefer-Preuss at the first meeting of the High-level Experts and Leaders Panel on Water and Disasters (HELP) on 4 June 2013 in Tokyo, Japan.
Global Water Partnership-Caribbean (GWP-C) has steadily continued building awareness on the usefulness of rainwater harvesting and the importance of water conservation with the help of its Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) model which was developed in late 2010.
Croatian children won the "International Danube Art Master 2013" competition, the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River and Global Water Partnership Central and Eastern Europe announced today at the Budapest Water Summit.
There have been many dialogues and seminars on river pollution in the past 20 years or so. Generally everyone agrees that as a country, we desperately need to do something about the sad state of our rivers, especially when we hope to achieve developed nation status by 2020. However, we have not been successful in translating consensus at these forums into changes on the ground.