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Water governance remains a key challenge in the Mediterranean. Efforts of countries focus on improving policies making and action planning, institutional settings, law and regulation, enforcement mechanisms, innovative financing, application of cost recovery and polluter pays principle, etc. To achieve sustainable models of development, water must be mainstreamed into other sectoral policies such as agriculture, land planning and use, energy, industry, tourism and trade. Political will is key for making these happen. The importance of cross-cutting issues, such as gender, equity, poverty and rights, is increasingly recognized but is still relatively poorly tackled.

One of the critical challenges facing the water sector is climate change. Studies have shown that Uganda is highly vulnerable to climate change and variability. This means that the economy and wellbeing of its people are tightly bound to climate. This has been demonstrated by increasing climate variability and occurrences of floods and droughts over the last two decades. These changes are likely to have significant implications for water sources, agriculture, food security, and soils.

14 April 2014, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Climate change adaptation is the focus of high-level regional training and knowledge exchange in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia this month. African government ministerial representatives from more than 30 least developed African countries are meeting to consider National Adaptation Plan (NAP)require-ments, which aim to address the long–term climate change challenges for Africa.

Five partner institutions are organising a joint training on International Water Law (IWL) in Africa. The experiences and lessons learnt will be used as a pilot to develop a 5-year-long (2016-2020) training programme on IWL, with the aim to improve transboundary water management in Africa. Interested candidates are welcome to apply for funded training before 25 June 2015.

Following the successful implementation of the National Integrated Flood Management (IFM) Programme - Role of Community 2012 last year in Kuala Lumpur, which was attended by participants from the states of Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Melaka and Johor, the same programme was again planned for this year, but held only at the State of Pahang on 7^th September 2013.

The 2013 event, aimed at raising awareness and disseminating information to communities living in flood-proned areas in the State of Pahang, was organised by the Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID) Malaysia and MyWP Capacity Building Network (MyCBNet) in collaboration with Malaysian Water Partnership (MyWP) and MyCWP.

GWP was one of the organizing partners of the Gender, Water & Development Conference held in East London from 3-7 November, 2014. The conference, hosted by the Department of Water and Sanitation, Water Research Commission, African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW), Women for Water Partnership and others, attracted over 430 participants from 36 countries. Dr. Ursula Schaefer-Preuss and Dr. Ania Grobicki, GWPs Chairperson and Executive Secretary respectively, both attended the conference and gave presentations on GWP’s commitment to gender mainstreaming.

The national Water Policy Dialogue, having engaged more than 100 Tunisian stakeholders within the past year (2013-2014), concluded with the launch of the National Report “Water Governance in Tunisia: Overcoming the Challenges to Private Sector Participation” held on 9 June 2014, in Tunis. The Report is the outcome of the multi-stakeholder Policy Dialogue and includes a diagnostic analysis of the key governance bottlenecks to private sector participation (PSP) in water supply and sanitation services as well as concrete policy recommendations for overcoming them.

The water sector stakeholders in Central Africa participated in a regional consultation meeting held in Douala, (Cameroon) within the context of the presentation of the Central Africa’s draft consultation report on “drinking water and sanitation for all”, for approval,in the preparation for the upcoming 7^th World Water Forum. Read more