March 22 marks World Water Day 2017. This year’s theme is wastewater. GWP has published two blogs about the theme, and conducted a Facebook Live interview with Rami Abdel Rahman of the Sweden Textile Water Initiative. Around the GWP Network, various celebrations are taking place. However, the main GWP celebration this year concerns the very website you are currently on – the launch of a completely new www.gwp.org.

On the occasion of the 2017 International Women’s Day, and drawing on the global theme for this year: Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality, GWP-Med has asked women water champions from the Mediterranean water community to reflect on: How can the water sector step it up for gender equality?

The Water-Employment-Migration nexus triggers a multi-faceted crisis posing major socio-political, economic and environmental risks in several regions (Africa, Asia, Europe), with the Mediterranean been in the eye of the cyclone.

On 28 September 2016, the CamboWP conducted Awareness Raising on Basin Management Approach with 18 participants who are Commune Council Members, Village Leaders and Deputy Leaders and Villagers of the Baray Commune which is located in the Mekong Floodplain.

The water situation in Venezuela remains critical, both in quality and quantity. In a recent national television interview, Yazenia Frontado, Chair of GWP Venezuela and Vice Chair of GWP South America, spoke about GWP Venezuela’s work to revert this situation.

The 2nd Regional Conference of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) labelled project “Governance & Financing for the Mediterranean Water Sector” was organised on 5-6 December 2016, in Tunis, Tunisia, by the Global Water Partnership - Mediterranean (GWP-Med), in close collaboration with the H2020 Pollution Reduction & Prevention Investment Group (PRPI) & National Action Plan process. It convened more than 110 decision makers and representatives of government, civil society, international organisations, donors and financing institutions and the private sector.

The 2016 GWP PANASIA Workshop was organized by GWP SEA and hosted by Singapore PUB in Singapore from July 14 to 15, 2016.

The University of Ljubljana hosted the first SANDANUBE workshop on 19-20 April in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Its goal was to define the parameters of a full scale project proposal on sustainable sanitation in Central and Eastern Europe.

In the run-up to the World Water Day 2016, let’s become ambassadors for change. Let’s address water scarcity utilizing options beyond the conventional!

GWP and key partners organised a training opportunity on Integrated Urban Water Management (IUWM) in Mongolia at the end of September. A new toolkit with training modules for IUWM were used for the first time, to test their functionality in a real environment.