The water sector in South Africa is dynamic and facing major challenges such as reduction in capacity of the Department of Water Affairs (DWA) to engage as extensively with stakeholders. As a result of a weak partnership base, it has been difficult to ensure the implementation of equitable and sustainable IWRM. Although a South African Country Water Partnership (SA CWP) was launched in 2002, and was active in early GWP activities such as the Framework for Action (FFA) over the years the sense of purpose for a partnership among water actors diminished as the water sector changed it’s strategic dimensions. One of the challenges that the SA CWP of the Global Water Partnership faced was defining exactly what its role in South Africa would be and how it would partner with other Water sector stakeholders to ensure that it executes its tasks and achieves success.
The United Nations has declared 2013 the International Year of Water Cooperation. The 2013 World Water Day, on 22 March 2013, is also dedicated to water cooperation.
The 2012 Forum on Heavy Metal Soil Remediation and Ecological Restoration (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Forum’) was held on May 30th and May 31st, 2012, in Beijing.
The vision of the Global Water Partnership-Caribbean (GWP-C) is for a water secure Caribbean and its mission is to support Caribbean countries in the sustainable development and management of their water resources at the community, national and regional levels.
In line with one of the decisions of the Sixteenth Session of the Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Malawi launched its National Adaptation Plan (NAP) on 2nd September at Sunbird Capital Hotel in Lilongwe. This was followed by a three day National Stakeholder Workshop at Sunbird Livingstonia Beach Hotel in Salima whose goal was to assist the Malawi Government to identify the next steps to start its National Adaptation Plan Process through multi-stakeholder engagement.
Three more GWP Technical Background Papers are now also available in Spanish. GWP’s library of publications written by the Technical Committee is growing, and there are currently 18 background papers. Many of them have been translated into several languages.
From 19-23 May 2014, the GWPEA in partnership with the Kenya Water Partnership and the Nile IWRM Net organised a regional training workshop on Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) as a tool for adaptation to climate change. The training aimed to strengthen the capacities of the countries in the Nile Basin and regional organisations for understanding climate change impacts and develop and implement adaptation programmes.
The Global Water Partnership Southern Africa (GWP SA) partnered with UNDP to follow up with a set of national dialogues on water. The water dialogues form part of the 11 thematic consultations now underway by the United Nations (UN) in preparation for developing Sustainable Development Goals (SD) in 2015. GWPSA engaged stakeholders from three countries to organise consultations during the months of February – April 2013. These are South Africa, Tanzania, and Mozambique.