Water security in many urban areas is under threat due to the stresses of population growth, urbanisation, water pollution, the over-abstraction of groundwater, water-related disasters, and climate change. Current planning and management have proven insufficient to address the challenges of water security. There is a need for a paradigm shift, which was introduced during a GWP workshop attended by more than 200 participants at Asia Water Week on 13 March in Manila, Philippines.
The well-being of people all over the world depends on the various goods and services provided by ecosystems, including food, fuel, construction materials, clean water and air, and protection from natural hazards. Ecosystems, however, are under increasing pressure from unsustainable use of resources and other threats including outright conversion of lands, pollution, expansion of infrastructure and urbanisation.
GWP Kyrgyzstan organized a workshop on 22-23 March 2013 in Bishkek for university lecturers to help them understand how to use the GWP IWRM ToolBox in education. Supported by the GWP global secretariat, the workshop was attended by 15 participants, mainly professors of the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University and the National Agrarian University in Bishkek, the leading universities in preparing Kyrgyzstan’s water resources graduates.
India Water Partnership (Global Water Partnership India), in association with Brainwiz - a students’ organization located in New Delhi - is organizing a session on "Combating Deseretification and Issues of Water Security" during Brainwiz Model United Nations (MUN) Conference 2013 at TERI University, New Delhi on 5-6 October 2013.
Over thirty (30) regional organisations working in the areas of water and wastewater in the Caribbean, will meet in Barbados on April 28th and 29th, 2014 at the Courtyard Marriott Hotel, to critically explore ways of strengthening their collaboration to improve water security in the region.
A one day sensitization workshop took place on 30 July 2013 in Banjul, Gambia. The meeting brought together about twenty (20) journalists from various media houses and freelance journalists from The Gambia with the aim to inform participants on the ratification process of the UN 97 Law on the use of international watercourses for purposes other than navigational in the country.
A national consultation on Adaptation to Climate Change and Drought in Slovenia was organised on 6 February 2014 by GWP Slovenia and the Centre for Management of Drought in South-Eastern Europe. Over 40 participants attended the meeting at the Slovenian Environment Agency in Ljubljana.
This year’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP19) brought some good news for the water community, said the GWP delegates who participated at the event in Warsaw, Poland 11-22 November.
A national consultation on Adaptation to Climate Change and Drought in Slovenia was organised on 6 February 2014 by GWP Slovenia and the Centre for Management of Drought in South-Eastern Europe. Over 40 participants attended the meeting at the Slovenian Environment Agency in Ljubljana.