“Water is life, but water can also be a threat to life”. This was said by the Permanent Secretary in the former Ministry of Water Resources Development and Management (MWRDM) in a keynote speech read on his behalf at a Catchment and Sub-catchment consultation and action planning workshop. He further highlighted that water resources in Zimbabwe need to be treated with extreme care due to increased scarcity being brought about by the adverse effects of climate change.
GWP Costa Rica has been invited to participate in a pilot project on the improvement of the availability of water. About 61% of the country’s 4.3 million people are located in urban areas, and while there has been significant progress in the past decade in expanding access to water supply and sanitation, the sector faces key challenges in low sanitation connections, poor service quality, and low cost recovery.
Irrigation infrastructure is crucial for economic development in Fujian. However, due to incomplete water management, the existing water facilities do not satisfy the current development. Action has been taken by the infrastructure department of Fujian provinces to cooperate with local farmers and organisations to explore participatory management and new mechanism of local water management. This case indicates that direct involvement of water users will result in rational use of water resources.
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.
The winner of the first IRF European River Prize is the Rhine River. The winner was announced at the European River Restoration Conference in Vienna on 12 September 2013. GWP is one of the organisers and financial sponsors of the prize.
In Benin, water use has not been regulated. Furthermore, water management has been sector-based, fragmented and compartmentalised. To change this, action was taken to initiate IWRM in Benin. A baseline study was done followed by drafting of an IWRM action plan. From the experience, the lesson learnt is that advocacy for strengthening political will for supporting the process must be seen as a transversal and on-going action throughout the whole IWRM process.
NATURE 2000 comprises a designation of nature sites of EU importance. However, after consultations with water managers, it became clear that NATURE 2000 sites located in the river valleys imposed new challenges for water resources management. Action was taken by GWP-Poland and WWF-Poland to find solutions. The project demonstrates that multi-stakeholder dialogue is a basic requirement for the solution of problems involving different perspectives and priorities.
Interview with Milkana Mochurova, PhD, at the Economic Research Institute at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
The GWP’s annual Consulting Partners Meeting and the Regional Days were held from 22 to 26 August 2012 in Stockholm. The delegation of the GWP China participated in all the events and the discussions.
GWP SA attended the Orange-Senqu River Commission (ORASECOM) Communications Task Team (CTT) which met on the 19 November 2013. The meeting provided an opportunity for GWP SA to give an update on the ‘Mainstreaming Climate Change into the Water Sector in the SADC region’ project. The ‘Climate Change Mainstreaming in the SADC Water Sector’ project aims to strengthen national stakeholder platforms for effective decision-making in Water Resource Management & Development, by providing training in national forums by targeting stakeholders and providing national consultations on basin wide issues (such as the development of the ORASECOM IWRM Plan).