The Central American Commission for Environment and Development (CCAD) and GWP Central America reported back to the Ministries of Environment of Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala on the national workshops regarding integrated drought management. GWP Central America coordinated a series of workshops on integrated drought management as part of the project “Increasing Disaster Risk Reduction Capacity due to Floods and Drought and Promoting Resilience in Central America”, financed by EUROCLIMA+.

Paraguay recently concluded a successful consultation workshop on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicator 6.5.1: Degree of Implementation of Integrated Management of Water Resources (IWRM). Paraguay is one of the countries that accepted support by GWP South America to carry out consultations on SDG 6.5.1. The first round of consultations started in 2016, and in Paraguay in 2017. Paraguay's 2020 consultation is one of many taking place worldwide to collect data and measure the progress made on IWRM.

In 2014, GWP and UNICEF established a strategic partnership to work on climate resilience and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH). While the world’s focus is currently on fighting the COVID-19 pandemic and its immediate consequences, the GWP-UNICEF collaboration is preparing for the next phase of this crisis: the support needed once governments begin to rebuild economies and introduce recovery plans to bring renewed, sustainable progress in their countries.

After learning about more than 350 Water ChangeMaker stories from around the world, we are excited to share with you the list of 78 semi-finalists that have been identified by our qualified and diverse technical jury to pursue the next stage in the Awards selection process. While the possibility to submit stories was offered in six languages, a majority of the semi-finalists come to us from South Asia, South America and Central America, with wide representation from 11 other regions.

August 31, 2020 – Enhancing water security between nations has become an imperative with water use in river basins surpassing sustainable limits and roughly 60% of the world’s freshwater resources crossing national borders. As a response, a new Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) aims to deliver the skills and knowledge for water cooperation. GEF IW:LEARN has been driving the development of the MOOC, coordinated and produced by Global Water Partnership (GWP), and with contributions from leading organisations.

GWP’s ongoing country consultations to evaluate the degree of implementation of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is progressing as planned, with July being a busy month. In Central America alone, consultations were held in El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama (shown in the above photo).

In celebration of International Youth Day 2020 on 12 August, GWP organised an online discussion with GWP Youth Engagement Specialist Rianna Gonzales, who interviewed GWP Southern Africa Youth Coordinator Paseka Lesolang about his achievements as an entrepreneur and influencer. Paseka said that one of the most important skills that has brought him to where he is today, is self-knowledge. This has allowed him to stretch himself to the next point. “Know thyself” was therefore one of his key messages.

GWP kicked off its first GCF Readiness workshop for 2020 – one of 30 being planned for this year – on July 28-29, in Uganda. The workshop, held at the request of the Government of Uganda’s Ministry of Water and Environment (MWE), trained participants on how to access support from the Green Climate Fund’s (GCF) Readiness and Preparatory Support Programme.

In July, a 3-part webinar series was held on “Coordinating, Implementing, and Financing National Climate and Water Policy Frameworks”. The series was developed by GWP and Cap-Net, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA), Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), and the Water Governance Facility. The sessions highlighted climate and water linkages in national frameworks such as the National Determined Contributions (NDCs), the National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), and various investment mechanisms.

The Water ChangeMaker Awards closed its submissions on 14 June – with 350+ individuals and groups from over 80 countries having submitted their personal experiences on how they have influenced water decisions that build climate resilience. Since that time, all submitted projects have undergone eligibility and verification screening.