GWP Eastern Africa draws its annual action plans from GWP’s priorities as reflected in the strategy and local contexts and needs. Aligning global water and climate resilience aspirations as reflected in GWP’s strategic goals with regional, national and local needs through vertical and horizontal consultations (policy dialogue & community meetings) ensures effectiveness, responsiveness and coherence in terms of desired change in water resource resources management policies, practices and mindset at all levels.
Following the in-country consultations with the key stakeholders and institutions to review and update into an Action plan ‘the Limpopo Basin Strategic Plan for reducing vulnerability to floods and droughts’, GWP SA conducted in country consultations in Zimbabwe. This review is part of the assistance being given to the LIMCOM in order for it to develop a Disaster Risk Reduction Action Plan.
The South African Country Water Partnership (SACWP) was first launched in 2002 at a time when the Department of Water Affairs was heavily engaging with different stakeholders for implementing its 1998 new water law. Since the launch, there have been a number of attempts to revive the CWP.
Many dialogues and seminars on river pollution have been organised over the past 20 years. Generally there is an agreement that countries desperately need to do something about the sad state of rivers, especially in countries which hope to achieve developed nation status by 2020.
The EU Water Framework Directive requires member states to identify and implement program of measures for reaching good water status for all water bodies by 2015. In Romania, this requires substantial investments. In response to address the pressures in the Romanian river basins, a number of measures have been identified, divided into basic measures and supplementary measures. The key lesson is the value of approaching the issue with several complimentary measures.
The Global Water Partnership (GWP) has sponsorship available for eligible participants to complete the online course in Integrated and Adaptive Water Resources Planning, Management and Governance offered by McGill University’s Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
Rwanda is located in eastern Africa, and is bordered by the Democratic Republic of the Congoto the west, UgandaTanzania to the east, and Burundi to the south. It lies a few degrees south of the equator and is landlocked.
Today water stress is a major concern in many urban areas. The core aspect of urbanisation is the rapid urban population growth together with inadequate planning, pollution, poverty, competing demands on the resource, all contribute to water stress: and consequently the urban water consumption is likely to double by 2025. Climate change is expected to cause significant changes as well in precipitation patterns which will affect the availability of water and induce water related disasters.
The city of Jabalpur experienced water shortages. Action was taken through a scheme, which would augment the water supply to the city, by substantially increasing funding. The key lesson is how an empowered local body can respond to water challenges in a successful manner.
Clearing for logging, combined with expanding agriculture and palm oil plantations has led to increased flooding, and pollution of the Kinabatangan River due to pesticides and fertilizers. Working in partnership, the Sabah Wildlife Department and the WWF took action and have established the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary. The key lesson of this case is the value of starting with small-scale feasible projects before scaling up.