– Report from GWP’s Side Event at Astana 2011
At the Seventh “Environment for Europe” Ministerial Conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, GWP convened a side event titled, “Economic Growth and Water: An Integrated Approach Helps” on September 23, 2011. GWP Chair Dr Letitia A Obeng emphasized that “When we speak about the economy and economic growth we speak about water resources.”
At the UK Houses of Parliament on June 6 the Foreign Policy Centre (FPC) launched “Tackling the World Water Crisis – Reshaping the Future of Foreign Policy”. The FPC paper includes a chapter on “Water Scarcity and Global Megacities” submitted by GWP.
The "Competing for Water" research programme investigates local water conflict and cooperation in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and analyzes the consequences for the poor.
Agriculture: the major sector of water consumption
Intensive abstraction for domestic, agricultural and industrial purposes has led to depletion of surface and groundwater bodies. Overexploitation of groundwater resources in particular, has led to seawater intrusion in coastal aquifers. Over the last 50 years, water demand for all sectors of activity together has doubled to reach 280 km3/ year in 2007.
The Global Water Partnership’s mission is to support the sustainable development and management of water resources at all levels. In implementing our 2009-2013 Strategy, our support will focus on four key goals: promoting water as a key part of sustainable national development; addressing critical development challenges (such as climate change, food security energy security and urbanization); reinforcing knowledge sharing and communications and; building a more effective network.
GWP China participated in GWP Regional Days and CP Meeting from August 15-19,2011 in Stocholm. Ms Ma Yilin and Prof. Jia Yangwen also participated in some activities of the 21th World Water Week.
In light of the recent development of its Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) model in 2010, Global Water Partnership-Caribbean (GWP-C) has and continues to engage in a series of public education activities targeted at building awareness on rainwater harvesting as a means of water conservation.
Media Advisory, February 21, 2011 -- South Asia is among the areas expected to be hardest hit by climate change. Severe flooding in 2007 along the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers affected over 13 million people in Bangladesh; flooding in Pakistan in 2010 severely affected 20 million people. India has likewise suffered numerous events of extreme rainfall, flooding and droughts. In addition the rise of sea level is a real threat to low lying areas in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. And there are the floods going on today in Sri Lanka.