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Athens, Greece, 17 January 2007

 

The overall objective of the Working Group on Shared Water Resources Management is to promote synergies between competent EU and non EU partners of the Mediterranean and SEE region and to assist in the formulation of a common approach on key aspects of joint management of shared surface and ground water resources.

The programme runs for 5 years with an estimated cost of 12.7 million euro.

Changing the behaviour of water users towards more sustainable practices is a necessary step in achieving water security. One way to promote such change is through economic instruments. Economic incentives involve the use of prices and other market-based measures to improve the way water is managed and used. They provide incentives to water users to use water carefully, efficiently, and in a manner consistent with the public interest. They have both positive and negative effects, rewarding users that recognise the true value of water and penalising profligate and anti-social use.

GWP Georgia organized a meeting where the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) agreed to carry out a National Policy Dialogue on Integrated Water Resources Management whose main objective is to facilitate achievement of the Millennium Development Goals on water-related issues.

Following on the series of successful regional workshops on Water Financing carried out in 2009 and 2010 by GWP and the EUWI in South America, the international seminar, "Water and Environmental Sanitation Financing" was held in Porto Alegre on June 11, organized by GWP Brazil in partnership with ABES-RS, the Brazilian Association for Sanitation and Environmental Engineering. Its aim was to identify and promote ways of funding water resources management.

In May, GWP Cambodia launched a report on river basin management in Asia together with the Asia Development Bank (ADB) and the Cambodia National Mekong Committee, outlining results from a 4-year programme, including an investment roadmap for water and related development. The report, which will serve as a case study for the application of IWRM in Cambodia, is available in Khmer or English and can be ordered on the GWP Cambodia website.

HRH the Prince of Orange of the Netherlands, and a Patron of the Global Water Partnership (GWP), delivered the GWP Annual Lecture on Friday, August 19, 2011, in celebration of GWP’s fifteenth anniversary.

GWP Partners in the Caribbean, Latin America, and Southeast Asia took part in a training course on “Groundwater Management in Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM),”

“Water is a thread that runs through every development sector. The land and water of Sri Lanka is our oil and our gold… We can no longer afford to make water a sectoral matter. We cannot make it someone else’s business.” These were some of the comments made by Ms Kusum Athukorala, Chair of the Sri Lanka Water Partnership at a felicitation ceremony conducted to honour her achievement on receiving the bi-annual Women in Water Award presented by the International Water Association.