As a co-organizer of the East Africa Young Water Professionals Conference held in Rwanda’s capital Kigali, December, 2012, GWP Eastern Africa contributed to the adoption of Water Declaration directed to government decision-makers in East Africa and beyond.
GWP Hungary organized 6th final of the Danube Box contest on 25 May 2013 at the Hungarian Geological and Geophysical Institute in Budapest.
A workshop on Water Integrity took place from 20-22 May 2013 at Birchwood Hotel, Johannesburg, South Africa. The workshop discussed the theme “Strengthening Civil Society and Media’s Role in Promoting Integrity and Accountability in the Water Sector”. The course was part of a larger capacity building programme on integrity and accountability in the water sector developed by the UNDP Water Governance Facility at SIWI, Cap-Net, WaterNet and the Water Integrity Network (WIN) in order to assist in building institutional capacity among key stakeholders. Previous workshops have targeted water managers, and other water decision-makers as primary target groups.
“An integrated approach to managing and developing the world’s water resources is vital for not only driving world economies, ensuring human well-being and security from hunger, but can also serve as an essential building block for enhancing coherence on adaptation,” said Dr. Ursula Schaefer-Preuss, Chair of GWP at a side event at the Bonn climate change negotiations. “Water is the connecting link because climate impacts are largely felt through the medium of water,” she said.
The winner of the first IRF European River Prize is the Rhine River. The winner was announced at the European River Restoration Conference in Vienna on 12 September 2013. GWP is one of the organisers and financial sponsors of the prize.
The Pungwe River basin offers significant opportunity for economic growth for Mozambique. The rate of economic success depends to a great extent on the implementation of IWRM. Action was taken to assess the progress of IWRM using a set of indicators addressing relevant areas. It became evident that implementing IWRM takes time and in order to reach success, implementation of IWRM has to follow the pace that can be adopted by all involved parties.
Global Water Partnership (GWP) Eastern Africa and Lake Victoria Basin Commission (LVBC) Cooperate for Sustainable Water Resources Management and promoting climate resilience in the wide Kagera Basin.
The importance of the IWRM approach in the socioeconomic development of a nation was the focus of a workshop arranged by GWP Central African Republic in Bangui in 2012 that brought together NGOs, the University of Bangui, and the country's GWP Partners.
The Tisza River is faced with deteriorating water quality as well as floods with increasing frequency and levels. These issues are exacerbated by climate change. Action has been taken, both by national authorities, international actors and NGOs to develop more adaptive management schemes. The key lesson is that in water management, the biggest problem is the weak coordination among different fields and interests – such as agriculture, nature, navigation, flood defence.
To extend the reach of the GWP Toolbox on IWRM to university education and training institutions, GWP organized a workshop in Dakar, Senegal on 14-15 May 2013. In total 16 university lecturers and representatives from government agencies in West Africa participated and discussed the role and importance of the Toolbox for providing IWRM knowledge in education and harmonising IWRM curricula in West Africa.