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With natural water supplies no longer meeting the growing demand in several countries throughout the region, non-conventional water resources, such as treated wastewater reuse and desalination, are increasingly becoming an additional contributor to water availability. Related environmental, energy, health and other impacts need to be carefully considered while defining the potentials and limitations of such options. Improving non-conventional options demands better planning and regulation; coordinated investment; monitoring of operations; building managerial capacity; and, where relevant, mitigating their negative impacts including along the coastline. Overall, where development of non-conventional options is necessary, it should be combined with water demand management actions. In relation and beyond these, a strong demand for integrated urban water management, including through blue-green approaches and practices, has emerged.

On March 3, 2015, the Workshop on Stories to Watch 2015 was held in Tsinghua University in Beijing which was jointly organized by the World Resources Institute (WRI) China and the Institute for Contemporary China Studies at Tsinghua University. Mr. Rugang  Zheng, the Coordinator of GWP China was invited to attend the workshop.

The Global Water Partnership – Mediterranean (GWP-Med) will be a key supporter of the Malta Water Week, to be held on March 25-26, 2015, along, among other, the Sustainable Energy and Water Conservation Unit of the Maltese Ministry for Energy and Health, the EIP (European Innovation Partnership)-Secretariat, the European Regions Research and Innovation Network, as well as the Maltese Water Services Corporation. The Malta Water Week is being organised by Paragon Europe, within the framework of the “Water Efficiency in European Urban Areas” - WE@EU Project, with the aim to create an open platform for EU excellence in sustainable and efficient urban water management that will enable participating clusters and regions to bring together knowledge and innovation potential by collaborating and mutually learning on a trans-national basis.

Stemming from the realisation of the inherent linkages between governance and the mobilisation of financial resources for the water sector, the aim of the Governance & Financing for the Mediterranean Water Sector Project has been to diagnose related bottlenecks and identify plausible and realistic recommendations to help overcome them.

With active participation through a wide range of events, GWP advocated for a higher profile of water in the global climate change policy process in Lima, Peru, and promoted the need for a dedicated Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for water.

Kalkallo project was the first large scale construction project in Australia attempted to harvest and treat stormwater to a standard acceptable for direct injection into water supply system. Because the project was innovative there was no regulatory framework dictating the rules of the game. That was considered as a barrier to move forward. The project turned out to display a high degree of success in some policy dimensions while a negligible degree in some others.

On 26 March 2015, the Burundi CWP held its ordinary statutory general assembly meeting in Bujumbura to discuss several issues icluding review of  progress towards activity achievement for the year 2014 and strategy for the implementation of  Bu CWP’s Action Plan for the year 2015.

Right at the heart of Namibia, “the land of the brave”, in the capital Windhoek was the venue for the 7th SADC Multi- stakeholder Water Dialogue held from the 29th to the 30th of September, 2015. Held under the theme, “Watering Development in SADC: The central role of water in driving industrialization” the dialogue was attended by 150 delegates from across the region representing the water sector, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), cooperating and development partners, academia, the media, and other relevant stakeholders from non-water entities (energy, agriculture, industrialization). The delegates, of which a good number were youth were brought together to deliberate the role that water will play in driving industrialization in the region.