The 1st Drin Day was celebrated on 17th of May 2014, in numerous locations across the Drin Basin, from Lake Ohrid till the outlet of the Buna/Bojana River on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, in order to mark the willingness for transboundary cooperation aimed at the protection of the shared water resources and its supporting ecosystems.
Frederik Pischke joined GWP as a Programme Officer in the summer of 2013. He is part of the global GWP secretariat in Stockholm, but Frederik is based in Geneva, Switzerland. He works with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in a unique collaboration between GWP and WMO, with strong focus on floods and droughts. Frederik explains the background.
The UNESCO Chair of Sustainable Development Management and Education in the Mediterranean at the University of Athens, the Mediterranean Information Office for Environment, Culture and Sustainable Development and the Mediterranean Education Initiative for Environment and Sustainability (MIO-ECSDE/MEdIES) are organizing an online survey, under the political guidance of the Secretariat of the Union of the Mediterranean (UfM) entitled “Mediterranean Youth Responses towards sustainable development and current crisis”.
The survey invites young people (15-35 yrs old) from the Mediterranean countries to share their thoughts about sustainability issues, the current economic and sociopolitical crisis in many parts of the region as well as their vision for the future.
For more information and to fill in the survey, click here.
GWP Burkina Faso implemented the start-up meeting and first national training workshop on June 16th and 17th to 20th, 2014, respectively in Ouagadougou. The start-up workshop was chaired by the General Secretary of the Ministry of Water, Hydraulic facilities and Sanitation, the Executive Secretary of GWP-West Africa and the Chair of GWP-WACDEP Burkina Faso.
Water insecurity costs the global economy some US$ 500 billion annually, according to Global Water Partnership (GWP). That figure does not take into account environmental impacts so the total drag on the world economy could be 1% or more of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
World Water Week 2014 takes place in Stockholm from 31 August to 5 September. This year’s theme is “Energy and Water”. Global Water Partnership will be involved in a number of activities during the week-long event.
On 29 October 2014 the Government of the Republic of Uzbekistan organized an international conference “Development of Cooperation in the Aral Sea Basin to Mitigate Consequences of the Environmental Catastrophe” in Urgench, Uzbekistan.
A press event was held at the Athalassa Center for Environmental Education on December 2nd, 2014 to mark the conclusion of the first phase of implementation works for the installation of new and the reinstatement of existing greywater reuse and rainwater harvesting systems at public schools and centres of environmental education.
Representatives of GWP Kenya and GWP Ethiopia recently carried out an exchange visit to share experiences on water resources management practices.