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The National IWRM Plan for Panama was approved in November 2011. This is the culmination of a long process, under the National Environment Authority (ANAM), supported by GWP Panama. The Plan aims to improve the welfare of communities in the basins, without compromising the sustainability of their natural or cultural systems. The Plan will benefit 3.4 million people and contribute to the operation of the Panama Canal, which in 2011 contributed US$1.043 million to the country's economy.

HRH the Prince of Orange of the Netherlands, and a Patron of the Global Water Partnership (GWP), will deliver the GWP Annual Lecture on Friday, August 19, 2011.

Raising awareness among young people and their teachers about the vital importance of the Danube Basin is the main aim of the annual Danube Art Master competition. Each child and school in the basin, covering 19 European countries, is invited to create a threedimensional work of art from material found near water, such as plants, shells, mud, grass and waste.

For the very first time, Southeast Asian countries have prepared an overall overview on WRM Financing, where it is linked to the GWP message: finance and good water governance are inextricably linked.

Both water and energy are essential to every aspect of life; social equity, human health, ecosystem integrity and economic sustainability. The longstanding division between energy and water considerations is particularly evident in the case of energy and water management. These resources are fundamentally intertwined; energy is used to secure, deliver, treat and distribute water, while water is used to develop, process and deliver energy.  

What differentiates IWRM from traditional water management approaches is the idea that water security can only be reached if different sectors that use water resources share information and collaborate on management issues. Another major difference is the meaningful involvement of stakeholders in the decision-making and implementation process. Both of these are impossible to achieve without communication. But the more diverse the actors are, the more likely they are to misunderstand each other or to pursue different kinds of interests, and the more communication specifically for conflictive situations might be needed. Communication is fundamental to any kind of success in IWRM.

Benin and the Netherlands signed a four year Memorandum of Understanding on water and pledged to establish a "technical advisory platform" with GWP Benin and the Netherlands Water Partnership playing the role of secretariat for the platform for 2012-2015. The MOU was signed by Mr. Ben Knapen, Dutch Minister for European and International Cooperation and Mr. Jonas Gbian, Beninese Minister in charge of water on Thursday, January 12, 2012.

Water Ministers representing four Caribbean countries endorsed recommendations for IWRM and water financing at the 2011 GWP Caribbean/Caribbean Water and Wastewater Association (CWWA) High Level Session (HLS) Ministerial Forum.

The Volta River basin remained one of the few unregulated transboundary watercourses in Africa.  Action was taken to improve water governance and water management practices. Although this is still in progress, it has resulted in multi-scale participatory governance frameworks for joint management. From this process, it is evident that building a local knowledge base with good data and information systems is important in deciding the most efficient allocation of resources.