Recent case studies and stakeholder consultations conducted by Global Water Partnership Southern Africa (GWPSAF) in the Buzi Basin shared between Zimbabwe and Mozambique, reveal the damaging effects of activities to the environment as well as water quality.
The Department of Agriculture, Water Resources and Environment (DAREN) and the ECOWAS Commission in collaboration with the Global Water Partnership in West Africa (GWP-WA), the African Network of Basin Organizations (ANBO); the Secretariat of the Convention for the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (UNECE) organized a regional workshop on the theme "Operationalization of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) at the river basin level in West Africa: approaches, achievements, challenges and good practices'', from November 30 to December 03, 2021, both face to face in Ouagadougou with virtual participation of partners in the countries.
About eighty representatives of youth and civil society organizations working in the water and climate sector in Congo, Cameroon, Chad, and the Central African Republic have received training on how the GWP IWRM toolbox can improve their involvement in Integrated Water Resources Management processes across the region.
The Kolgweogo Association, with about 20 members, benefited from a series of training sessions on agricultural practices that aim to improve their productivity, organisation and development of economic activities; Zaï and half-moons were experimented with in order to teach beneficiaries how to transform a resistant land into a resilient and favourable land for agriculture.
Social inclusion and gender equality are long-established, core values of the GWP Network and manifested in the GWP Gender Strategy and the GWP Gender Action Piece. In a series of inter-regional discussions, GWP Senior Gender & Social Inclusion Specialist Liza Debevec sets out to identify what GWP as an institution can do to apply the concepts in these documents. Her first discussion is with Amy Sullivan and Andrew Takawira, who are both involved in a large Pan-African project on gender transformative water and climate investment. The discussion topic is institutional leadership and commitment, which is the first of 4 action areas in the Gender Action Piece. Their message is clear: leadership makes all the difference.
An assessment report on the status of Hygiene and Basic sanitation (HBS) in Benin from 2010 to 2020 shows that the Government is paying less attention to HBS compared to the water subsector and the ministry of Health is not doing the required actions. This report was validated by the twenty participants, actors of the sector and coming from various horizons to the workshop organized for this purpose, on September 24, 2021.
In June 2022, a cohort of young and aspiring water specialists from Central and Eastern Europe will get a chance to experience a week of theory and practice on Integrated Water Resources Management at the Tisza Lake in Hungary.
