Today water stress is a major concern in many urban areas. The core aspect of urbanisation is the rapid urban population growth together with inadequate planning, pollution, poverty, competing demands on the resource, all contribute to water stress: and consequently the urban water consumption is likely to double by 2025. Climate change is expected to cause significant changes as well in precipitation patterns which will affect the availability of water and induce water related disasters.
The Global Water Partnership-Caribbean (GWP-C) in partnership with the Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA) is seeking a suitable consultant to review and revise the Antigua and Barbuda Draft National Water Policy, with consideration of institutional changes to date, on-going processes and highlighting the evolving nature of the water sector due to climate change.
The importance of the IWRM approach in the socioeconomic development of a nation was the focus of a workshop arranged by GWP Central African Republic in Bangui in 2012 that brought together NGOs, the University of Bangui, and the country's GWP Partners.
GWP Peru carried out the First Dialogue on National Development and Water Security in the context of Climate Change Adaptation on March 1, 2013, at the National Water Authority Auditorium in Lima. Its aim was to involve and sensitize actors across all sectors on the tight links among water management, adaptation to climate change, and sustainable economic growth.
Reba Paul from Bangladesh was awarded a scholarship with the International WaterCentre (IWC) in Australia last year. Reba’s scholarship is a collaboration between GWP and IWC – one that will expand to a second scholarship in 2014. As the application deadline approaches, Reba tells her story below.
To extend the reach of the GWP Toolbox on IWRM to university education and training institutions, GWP organized a workshop in Dakar, Senegal on 14-15 May 2013. In total 16 university lecturers and representatives from government agencies in West Africa participated and discussed the role and importance of the Toolbox for providing IWRM knowledge in education and harmonising IWRM curricula in West Africa.
The WACDEP Coordinating Unit, under GWP SA has been working with stakeholders in and the WACDEP Program Managers in Zimbabwe and Mozambique in the preparation of the Reference Group Country Missions scheduled for March 2014. The Reference Group meetings were held from 23-25 March in Mozambique and 26-27 March in Zimbabwe among other things provided opportunities to exchange experiences, lessons, and challenges with the WACDEP team in Mozambique on WACDEP implementation and generate perspectives for enhancing progress in all components of the programme.
Coinciding with the 2013 World Water Week in Stockholm, GWP presents three new policy briefs on critical water management issues. The topics are Integrated Urban Water Management, Transboundary Water Cooperation and the Economic Value of a Water Secure World.