20 March 2014: The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has created a Regional Centre for Groundwater Management for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) in Montevideo, Uruguay.

The agreement establishing the Centre was signed on 20 March 2014, at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France, by UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova and Uruguay’s Permanent Delegate to UNESCO, Omar Mesa.

The Centre will help Uruguay build national capacity in sustainable management of aquifers, while helping other LAC countries in priority issues related to groundwater management to be identified jointly with those countries. The Centre will provide facilities and opportunities for advanced research by scientists on LAC aquifers and groundwater management, and promote exchanges between the region’s water managers and technical experts on the subject.

The idea for a regional center was first proposed by Uruguay in October 2011, and supported in a resolution adopted in June 2012 by UNESCO’s International Hydrological Programme’s (IHP) Intergovernmental Council. [UNESCO Press Release]