The national reserve Sur is deteriorating. Action has been taken by NGOs to initiate a project to restore water conditions in the reserve, including the interplay between water and soil. Despite the projects importance, it failed to be implemented due to conflicts with national authorities. This case illustrates the danger of EU initiatives being implemented without an active public involvement since this creates risks of low acceptance of local communities and land owners.
The 5th Africa Water Week (AWW5) takes place in Dakar, Senegal on 26 to 31 May 2014. The event is convened by the African Ministers Council on Water (AMCOW) in conjunction with the African Union Commission and organised with other development partners. GWP is involved in a number of activities.
The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA), the Caribbean Council for Science and Technology (CCST), the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI), The University of the West Indies (UWI), the Trinidad and Tobago Film Company (TTFC) and Columbus Communications Trinidad Limited (FLOW) have launched the 2nd Caribbean Science and Agriculture Film and Video Competition targeting young professionals. The theme of this year’s competition is “Adding Value to Local Foods.”
In 2013 UN-Water initiated an expert consultation process where UN-Water’s 31 UN-members and 36 international Partners, including GWP, came together to analyze what role water could have in the Post-2015 Development Agenda. The result is a joint paper with technical advice.
Despite high water availability in Jamaica, uneven distribution in both time and space creates local scarcity. Hence, it is problematic to distribute water adequately to all sectors, and to develop abstraction points for water treatment. To address the issues, action was taken and a Water Sector Reform was proposed, including a Water Sector Strategy and Action Plan. From this experience, the lesson learned is the importance of coordinating activities and harmonising policies, legislation and institutions.
For centuries the Upper Guadiana Basin has been irrigated with groundwater, resulting in a drop in the water table of more than 20 meters. Actions were taken to address this issue, including regulations restricting aquifer abstraction and economic incentives to encourage farmers to improve irrigation efficiency and plant alternative crops. The key lesson learnt is that surface and underground waters cannot be managed separately.
El Cerrito Canton community has spent decade attempting to get access to clean water. Action was taken to organise a Community Development Association, leading to the execution of a potable water project. The key insight drawn from this case is that, it is key for communities to have water access and management is their capacity to get organised.
The EU Water Framework Directive requires measures to achieve good status of all waters by 2015. In France, water management is planned at basin-level by state offices and water agencies, but measures are implemented by the local authorities. To meet these requirements, the i-Five project was launched, applying an action research methodology to selected areas. From this study, it is evident that interaction with stakeholders plays a central role.
The theme of the December 2014 workshop in Pretoria, South Africa, was learning how to plan and execute a campaign. The training was done in collaboration with UN-Water, and the specific campaign we planned was targeted on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the post-2015 development agenda.
In Chile, water has been privatised. However, in order to make sure that access was still available to all strata of society, the privatisation was accompanied by a robust regulatory framework, including a system of direct subsidies for drinking water consumption and sewage services for low income households. This case thus illustrates that in case of privatisation, a direct subsidiary scheme should be considered.