GWP’s Water, Climate, and Development Programme has been formally introduced in Central America. Launch events have taken place in Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, and there will be events in Guatemala and El Salvador by the end of October.
Toward water security and climate resilience
The Drin River Basin covers Albania, Greece, FYR Macedonia, Kosovo (UN administered) and Montenegro. The Drin River is the connecting body of this water system, linking the lakes, wetlands, rivers and other aquatic habitats into a single ecosystem of major importance. A work programme for the project “Enabling Transboundary Cooperation and Integrated Water Resources Management in the Extended Drin River Basin”, in which GWP Mediterranean participates, was adopted in November.
New York: Greece has this month become the 21st country to ratify a global water treaty designed to reduce conflict and guide joint management over rivers and lakes forming or crossing international boundaries.
With the collapse of the USSR, the water sector seized to be subsidised leading to deterioration of basic infrastructure. Action was taken to partially transfer the responsibility for operation and maintenance of irrigation systems to water users. Nonetheless, this has had limited success because it has been seen as an additional cost rather than benefit. This illustrates that for this to work, the returned benefits need to be higher than the costs.
The EU Water Framework Directive requires all EU member states to achieve satisfactory water quality of all waters by 2015. Although each country is individually responsible, cooperation over transnational water resources is required. In the Körös/Crisuri river basin, a project was initiated using the expertise and experience of Hungary and Romania, involving all key stakeholders. The key lesson is the importance of public participation.
On World Water Day, the Global Water Partnership calls for increased cooperation to manage shared water resources.
To build a closer working relationship on knowledge sharing with universities, a workshop on the GWP Toolbox and IWRM Knowledge Centers was held in Stockholm on 25 August 2012. More than 16 lecturers and researchers from universities participated and shared experiences on teaching IWRM and other water resources-related areas, with examples of how the Toolbox can be applied.