Participation in the Climate Info Session To Support Ghana On The Road To Paris Global Agreement
The Project Manager, Mr. Maxwell Boateng-Gyimah and the Young Professional, Isaac Barnes, participated in an Information Session at the conference room of WASCAL in Accra on 17th June, 2015. This session was organised by the European Union in Ghana in collaboration with West Africa Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL). The meeting was chaired by His Excellency Frédéric Clavier, the French Ambassador to Ghana and Ambassador John Benjamin, British High Commissioner to Ghana. Other participating institutions included the French Embassy, Environmental protection Agency (EPA), Kasa Ghana, and Water Aid Ghana (WAG).
In December this year, the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) will take place in Paris. Governments are supposed to come to a universal agreement regarding climate which will determine the future of our planet.
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.
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.
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.
Limited land space, high population densities and population growth, coupled with increased urbanisation has led to a decline in freshwater and coastal water quality in the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) of the Caribbean.
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.