Global Water Partnership - GWP

GWP partners to strengthen ecosystems

The Regional Partnership on Water and Environment in Central and West Africa, also known as Partenariat Régional sur l’Eau et l’Environnement en Afrique Centrale et Occidentale (PREE), aims to strengthen the resilience of natural ecosystems and local communities in the river and lake basins of West and Central Africa.

In February 2021, GWP West Africa signed a partnership agreement with the International Union for Conservation of Nature to contribute to the implementation of PREE. Under the partnership, GWP has been contributing to discussions about the future of the Fouta Djallon highlands, assisting with training for national focal points, contributing to analysis of water and environment information systems in Central and West Africa, and preparing cases studies on sustainable management and exploitation of fisheries in the Chari/Logon sub-catchment and Inner Niger Delta.

To raise awareness and capacities in the regions, GWP organised two training workshops for journalists, and led a training session for 30 institutions on gender mainstreaming in IWRM in May 2021. National conference debates were also conducted in eight West African countries on “the process of promoting the water–security–peace nexus: issues, challenges and opportunities for Youth in West Africa”.

Progress on Volta flood and drought management

Increasing resilience to floods and droughts in the Volta Basin has been the focus of collaboration between GWP, the World Meteorological Organization, and the Volta Basin Authority. The collaboration is part of the Integrating Flood and Drought Management and Early Warning for Climate Change Adaptation in the Volta Basin programme.

GWP has assisted in organising six national workshops and one regional workshop on nature-based solutions, as well as training 63 national technicians on data collection and the production of flood and drought risk maps in the Volta Basin.

Facilitation materials on gender mainstreaming were developed for national capacity-building stakeholder workshops that explored end-to-end early warning systems for flood forecasting and integrated flood risk management. The workshops were attended by 209 delegates; 44 percent of these were women.