In Turkey, operations and maintenance for irrigation systems was highly centralised, but this imposed an increasing institutional and financial burden on the government. Action has consequently been taken to transfer irrigation management to Water User Associations. The key insight from this case is that legal reforms should accompany institutional changes to enable full benefits to be gained.
The Maltese islands experience acute water shortage as an area. To address this, leakage control has been developed to become a strategically important component for water resource management, and has been used to reach an optimum economic balance between water supply and water demand. The key lesson is that leakage management is an effective supply side action to increase efficiency in water use leading, and can be used as a strategic tool.
A project focusing on safe water and sanitation in the Republic of Moldova won Category 2 of the Award.
This year's World Water Week takes place in Stockholm 1-6 September 2013.
A one day sensitization workshop took place on 30 July 2013 in Banjul, Gambia. The meeting brought together about twenty (20) journalists from various media houses and freelance journalists from The Gambia with the aim to inform participants on the ratification process of the UN 97 Law on the use of international watercourses for purposes other than navigational in the country.
On April 17, 2013 in Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic, a workshop was held to discuss the report on Green Growth in the Aral Sea, prepared by the Global Water Partnership (GWP) of Central Asia and the Caucasus, the Scientific Information Center of the Interstate Coordination Water Commission (SIC ICWC) of Central Asia with the support from the Global Green Growth Institute (Korea). The workshop was attended by officials from national water agencies and executive bodies of ICWC.
The water resources of Brazil are subjected to pollution and mismanagement. Furthermore, it is susceptible to urban flooding and land-slides. To address these issues, action was taken to increase funding to the National Water Agency. In terms of IWRM, the key lesson learnt is the need for strong and well-funded executive agencies capable of putting laws into practice.