The Integrated Drought Management Programme (IDMP) is a joint initiative of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Global Water Partnership.
Groundwater depletion is a serious issue in India. The government has approached the issue of declining groundwater levels largely through regulatory means. For the policy to be successful, it is crucial that users understand groundwater occurrence, cycle, and limited availability. Much effort has thus been placed on engaging farmers and communities. This case study demonstrates the importance to work with capacity building and social mobilization rather than physical solutions.
The Mekong is the longest river in Southeast Asia, beginning its 4,200 km journey in the mountains of the Tibetan Plateau, passing six countries and reaching the South China Sea. Policy reforms to adopt integrated water resources management had been initiated and water related laws had been developed. However, there were still major gaps in the supporting knowledge and information. IUCN and its program Water &Nature Initiative (WANI) supported to scale up so called Tai Baan research (villagers’ research) that enabled local communities to represent their own social reality and through media and public forum, this knowledge can be mainstreamed into water management research and implementation.
The 2014 Global Water Partnership (GWP) Consulting Partners Meeting which was held on June 27th and 28th, 2014 in Trinidad closed with an Annual Lecture entitled “Climate and Water: Global to Local Caribbean Socio-Economic Climate Change Scenarios” which was delivered by Professor John B.R. Agard.
The meeting on the project "Green Growth Framework for water security in the Aral Sea Basin was held on 26-28 March 2013 in Seoul, Korea.
“Building resilience of people, communities and countries to these water-related disasters and extreme climate events is the major challenge of our time, as climate change will get worse before it gets better,” were the closing words of the speech given by the GWP Chair Dr Ursula Schaefer-Preuss at the first meeting of the High-level Experts and Leaders Panel on Water and Disasters (HELP) on 4 June 2013 in Tokyo, Japan.
In Turkey, operations and maintenance for irrigation systems was highly centralised, but this imposed an increasing institutional and financial burden on the government. Action has consequently been taken to transfer irrigation management to Water User Associations. The key insight from this case is that legal reforms should accompany institutional changes to enable full benefits to be gained.
Karen Sutherland, CDKN Project Manager at SouthSouthNorth, gives an overview of the AMCOW Capacity Building Programme and feedback from a workshop in Kigali to test the on-the-job training materials that will form the basis of the programme
The area around Lake Moyua is experiencing severe soil degradation resulting from inappropriate agricultural practices. To reverse and control the degradation process, an IWRM Plan is implemented. By involving the communities, the aim is to restore the soil, the hydrological systems, forests and biodiversity, as well as the harmonisation of policies and implementation of management regulations. This case study consequently demonstrates the value of a bottom-up approach.