This article is intended to provide readers with a brief and more accurate picture of our partnership system.
Key Points
1. GWP’s core operational network consists of its accredited 13 Regional Water Partnerships and 77 Country Water Partnerships, not the thousands of organisations who have chosen to register themselves in our partner database. The SvD article misrepresents this central fact regarding how the organisation works.
2. Applying to become a registered partner is open to all organisations who agree to support the principles of Integrated Water Resource Management.
3. GWP has been engaged in a process of cleaning and updating our database of registered partners (as we do periodically).
4. According to the Statutes governing our intergovernmental organisation, no partner organisation may be expunged from our list of partners before a decision to do so is formally approved by the annual meeting of the Network of Partners. We are working to update and modernise these Statutes.
5. To provide a more accurate picture, we have begun reporting publicly on the number of partners whom we consider to be “active”.
6. GWP also practices many other forms of partnership in pursuit of our goal: a water-secure world for all.
GWP’s core operational network of Regional and Country Water Partnerships
GWP’s operational network primarily consists of our 13 Regional Water Partnerships (RWP) and 77 Country Water Partnerships (CWP). These Partnerships are accredited by GWP to represent and act on behalf of the global organisation in their regions and countries. Our Business Plan is first and foremost based on the work of these partnerships, not on the several thousand organisational entities in our database of registered partners.
Understanding the GWP network of registered partners
Applying to join GWP’s network of registered partners is open to states, governments (at all levels), organisations, academic institutions and businesses (though not to individuals). The only ground condition for becoming a Partner is to indicate that one is committed to the principles of integrated water resources management (IWRM). All partner applications are vetted by GWP and must be personally approved by the Executive Secretary (CEO).
Registered partners receive regular communications from GWP globally, including information on relevant opportunities and resources that might be useful to them; and they have opportunities to participate, in varying degrees, in relevant regional or country-level processes (as decided by the accredited, independent Regional and Country Water Partnerships described above).
All GWP Partners are invited to the annual Network Meeting of Partners, where they have the opportunity to make their voices heard in our governance processes.
Misinterpretation of funding and governance of GWP’s registered partners
SvD inaccurately claims that GWP’s entire network of registered partner organisations is “funded and receives overall governance via GWP” (“finansieras och får sin övergripande styrning via GWP”). This statement is incorrect and misleading. GWP does not fund or govern the broader network of registered partners that we have described above.
GWP made repeated efforts to inform SvD of the important difference between our operational network (which is the part that receives funding and implements programmes) and the broader network of registered partners. SvD showed no interest in addressing, understanding, or communicating that distinction, neither during the interviews conducted nor in the resulting published article series.
Database clean-up and clarification
As communicated to SvD and explained in our article on our website (“How many GWP Partners are there?”), we are currently updating and cleaning our partner database. Note that we have recently begun referring to “registered partners” in order to distinguish the partners in this database – all of whom have at some time actively applied to and been formally approved by GWP – from other types of partners with whom we work.
It is important to note the following about the governance of our partner database:
- While ALL organisations in the database were once registered and formally approved, removing partners from the database requires, under our governing Statutes, a formal decision taken by the entire body of registered partners, at our annual Network Meeting of Partners.
- GWP’s governing Statutes were written many years ago, and agreed to by the governments who created us, with the aim of ensuring that GWP’s registered partners had a meaningful say in the governance of the organisation. As the number of partners has grown, certain formal procedures – such as the removal of partners from our list – have become unwieldy, and GWP is pursuing a programme of governance reform to address that. However, changing our governing Statutes takes time, as it requires decisions taken at the governmental level (and often at the parliamentary level).
- As noted at our recent Network Meeting of Partners on 8 October 2024, we have recently developed a method to provide a more accurate picture of the current partner list, without requiring a formal decision for expulsion from the list at that annual Network Meeting. This method categorizes partners as “active” or “inactive,” based on the evidence available to us. We must be careful, however, not to exclude partners simply based on an incorrect email address or a non-functioning website (these things always change over time).
GWP’s partner network extends more broadly
In addition to the registered partners (that is, those listed in our database), GWP collaborates with a variety of other partners, including:
- Organisations working with us on program and project delivery (these are often contractual relationships).
- Organisations participating in multi-stakeholder dialogue processes or communities of practice to advance knowledge and learning on water.
- Partners with whom we have other formal agreements but who are not listed in our database (because, as noted, joining the list of registered partners requires that the organisation make a separate application – we cannot simply add them to the list).
- Strategic partners without formal agreements.
We regret that SvD has not been responsive to our efforts to explain the way our various partnership processes work and are governed, and that they have chosen instead to present an inaccurate and misleading picture.
We take the information published by SvD seriously, and we welcome information that helps us identify partners who may have registered long ago and who no longer wish to participate, or who no longer exist as organisations; and we are committed to providing accurate and transparent details about our work. As our published statements indicate, this is an area of priority focus.
We encourage readers to explore the full scope of GWP's partnerships and partners, which extend beyond the registered partners in the database. And we invite interested organisations to apply to become a GWP Partner, and to join our global community of actors working to achieve a more water-secure world, for this and for coming generations.
For more information, please visit the Partner section of our website.