On March 31st 2014, the Costa Rican Congress passed the new Water Law. For over a decade the Central American countries have been working on reforming their water legislative and institutional frameworks, and one of the pioneers in this process has been Costa Rica.
A series of activities called The Great Walk for Water initiated by some NGOs will be held from 22 February to 22 March 2015 to draw the World attention on the future "disappearance" of Lake Chad, if nothing is done. This great walk for water is a media caravan, actions and multidisciplinary activities to advocate for an increased attention on the situation of National and International Watercourses in Africa in general and especially the Lake Chad.
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.
The Global Water Partnership – Mediterranean (GWP-Med) has established a formal agreement with the Department for Planning and Conservation of Agricultural Lands at the Tunisian Ministry of Agriculture towards integrating climate change considerations in water and soil conservation planning, under the WACDEP (Water, Climate & Development) Programme; and in this context, it has entered a very fruitful collaboration with the Ministry, as well as the Regional Department for Agriculture in Bizerte, in Tunisia’s North, using the Douimis Basin in the Bizerte Region as a pilot for the development of the climate change mainstreaming methodology.
The GWP’s annual Regional Days were took place in Stockholm from 10 to 13 May.
Country Water Partnerships organized the national consultations in Bulgaria, Romania and Slovenia between 18-21 March 2014 in Sofia, Bucharest and Ljubljana while dates are pending for Poland.
The Water, Climate and Development Programme (WACDEP) in Central Asia and Caucasus aims to support countries to systemise their efforts on climate change adaptation and water security, promoting Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) as a tool for climate-resilient development.