January 2014: The Global Water Partnership (GWP) is engaging in a number of activities as the year begins and has reported on a number of meetings that were held at the end of 2013 at the regional and national levels. The GWP Central Asia and Caucasus (CACENA) and GWP West Africa (AO) Regional Council convened in late 2013 to approve activities for 2014, and national activities took place in Ukraine and Burkina Faso, among other actions.

At the regional level, the GWP CACENA Regional Council met from 23-25 December 2013, in Tbilisi, Georgia, in part to adopt the activity plans for 2014. Three main events are planned under the approved activity plan, including: a regional seminar on basin aspects of integrated water resource management (IWRM) in July 2014; a preparatory conference for the 7th World Water Forum, scheduled to take place in the Republic of Korea in March 2015, to take place in September 2014, in Turkmenistan; and a regional workshop to be held in Armenia in October 2014, with a view to review outcomes of demonstration projects under the Climate Change Adaptation Program. The Regional Council also agreed to prepare a publication titled ‘GWP CACENA Contribution to the Development of Water Security in the Region,’ as a contribution to the preparatory conference for the 7th World Water Forum. The Regional Council also approved the inclusion of Mongolia in the GWP CACENA network.

The GWP AO Regional Council met on 25 November 2013, in Dakar, Senegal, bringing together Country Water Partnership (CWP) members, as well as the regional and global members of the GWP Secretariat, to discuss regional issues and outline the new global GWP strategy, which focuses on water security, including: water security and climate change; water security and energy; water security and food security; water security and urban development; water security and ecosystems; and water security and transboundary basins and aquifers. The meeting highlighted the need for funds to sustain projects by CWPs and resulted in a request to each national entity to identify several priority sectors for projects and provide the context and rationale, which GWP-AO and GWP will synthesize with a view to proposing projects for elaboration by the CWPs.

National activities included the organization by CWP Ukraine and the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Centre of a National Dialogue on Drought Management, which took place on 10 December 2013, in Kiev, Ukraine. The event brought together government and stakeholders to discuss a variety of issues, such as: the urgency of the drought problem in Ukraine; the importance of monitoring, forecasting and recommendations to reduce economic impacts of drought; the tasks of the Integrated Drought Management Programme; and the main climatic trends. The meeting took place under the aegis of the Integrated Drought Management Programme – Central and Eastern European component, a joint project by the GWP and World Meteorological Organization (WMO) launched in March 2013.

CWP Burkina Faso, in collaboration with the Water Agency of Nakanbé, is celebrating the installation of a local water committee in the sub-basin of Massili Nord, which will undertake actions at the sub-basin level to develop, promote, protect and restore water resources, including by providing advice to the Water Agency of Nakanbé and arbitrating local conflicts about water use.

As part of its objective to build capacity and engage stakeholders for the implementation of IWRM, the GWP has endorsed a Massive Online Open-Access Course (MOOC) through Coursera on ‘Water Supply and Sanitation Policy in Developing Countries’ taught by Dale Whittington, University of Manchester and GWP Technical Committee Member, and Duncan Thomas, University of Manchester. The course aims to provide an understanding of the situation and challenges in the water and sanitation sector in low and middle-income countries.

GWP Mediterranean is highlighting an upcoming school competition ‘The Gift of Rain’ under the Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) programme in Greece, which will run from 1 January – 10 March 2014. School students can submit paintings, posters or videos, winners will be announced on World Water Day, taking place on 22 March 2014. [GWP Press Release: MOOC] [GWP Press Release: Ukraine] [GWP Press Release: GWP CACENA] [GWP Press Release: Greece] [GWP Press Release: GWP AO (in French)] [GWP Press Release: Burkina Faso (in French)]