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Securing continuous political support for enhanced ownership, wide outreach and impact, is among the horizontal objectives of the regional project "Capacity Building Programme on Water Integrity in the Middle East and North Africa"[1]. This SIWI-led, Sida-supported, UfM-labelled programme where GWP-Med is a core regional partner, aims to develop capacities of targeted water stakeholder groups at different governance levels to improve transparency, accountability and participatory practices in water management in the MENA region. Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia are the focus countries of this work.

The Limpopo River Basin (LRB) which has a total population of 18 million with 15 million in South Africa, 1.2 in Botswana, 1.1 million people in Mozambique, 0.8 million in Zimbabwe is prone to natural disasters as a result of climate change. Therefore, on the 24^th of November, 2015, Resilience in the Limpopo Basin Program (RESILIM) in partnership with Global Water Partnership Southern Africa (GWP SA) undertook an in-country consultation workshop on the development of the Limpopo River Basin Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Action Plan.

The GWP - CAf general assembly of partners was held in Douala, Cameroon on November 6, 2015 under the theme " water sector funding challenges in Central - Africa Opportunities and Constraints: What strategy to adopt? "

The consulting partner meeting brought together the chairs of the 4 country water partnerships of Cameroon, Central African Republic, Sao Tomé and Principe as well as the acting chair of GWP-CAf Technical Committee, GWPO network officer for central Africa, representatives of basin organizations like International commission for Congo-Oubangui-Sangha basin (CICOS), the Lake Chad Basin Commission, and the representatives of civil society organizations.

This paper explores the concept of water security, its relation to IWRM, as well as possible ways to quantify water security. It suggests two approaches: the developmental approach, seeking to increase water security over time; and the risk-based approach, focussing on managing risks and reducing vulnerabilities resulting from climate variability and water-related disasters. This is a Technical Background Paper, written by the GWP Technical Committee, a group of internationally recognised professionals in integrated water resources management.

“Many activities had been done and showed progress in the past five years, but there are also still remaining a lot of challenges and many IWRM activities need to be done in the coming years. However, the new phase of strategy implementation has to be improved and aligned with national natural resources strategy and other water related sector plans as well as the 8th national socio-economic development plans of the government 2016-2020” said Mr. Thoumma Saluemxay, Deputy Director General of Department of Water Resources, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.

The workshop on 26 May 2015 highlighted that The Lao National Water Resources Strategy and Action Plan 2011-2015 implementation and development is very crucial for water sector collaboration among stakeholders in the country since the last five years of review.

Τhe 12 OECD Water Governance Principles - developed through a multi-stakeholder approach where GWP-Med was actively engaged - provide a framework for governments to put in place better water policies and are available in 15 languages.

GWP and Partners recently organised a one-day high level workshop in Stockholm, Sweden, to discuss gender equality and inclusion in water management, and set out a path forward for a range of influential stakeholders. This was the second part of a wider study on how to better address gender-equality and inclusion issues in water-related policies and programmes. The event was facilitated by Melita Grant of the Institute for Sustainable Futures - University of Technology of Sydney (ISF-UTS) in Australia. She talks us through the process.

The Budget and Finance Committee is an ad hoc committee set up by the Steering Committee to review documents including work plans, budgets and progress and financial reports to give its opinion on the level of implementation GWP West Africa budgets.