Colombo is one of the first 18 cities that has been accredited as a Ramsar Wetland City at the 13th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention (COP13) held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on 25 October 2018.

This month, Howard Bamsey began his duties as the new Chair of GWP. He did so with a visit to the global secretariat in Stockholm, Sweden, where he met staff and got briefed on current issues around the network. We took the opportunity to discuss his thoughts on joining GWP, and his reflections on some of GWP’s most recent activities at the UN climate change conference, COP24, in December.

Water is to adaptation what energy is to mitigation – and with this in mind, GWP and the NDC Partnership co-convened a ministerial dialogue on December 10. Bringing together progress made on implementing SDG6 – the Water Goal – with climate adaptation ambitions, GWP launched “The Untold Story of Water”, an analysis of 80 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

On October 19 in San Salvador, GWP Central America and the Central American Commission for Environment and Development (CCAD), in coordination with the Central American and Dominican Republic Forum on Water and Sanitation (FOCARD-APS) and the Government of El Salvador, held a regional workshop to promote the exchange of experiences among the countries of Central America on progress in monitoring and implementing SDG 6 in the national 2030 agendas.

Gender, like many other sectors, looks so easy on the surface, but so deep when you unpack and implement, SADC ‘s Dumisani Mndzebele told a gender mainstreaming meeting in Malawi.

Gender mainstreaming is about identifying gender gaps and making the concerns and priorities of women’s, men’s, girls’ and boys’ integral to the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes so that developmental benefits are relevant, and are shared equally.

The Country Water Partnership of Benin (CWP-Benin) organized on August 16 and 17, 2018, the start-up workshop of the country project #TonFuturTonClimat in Natitingou, northern part of the country. This project is an initiative of the International Secretariat for Water (ISW) and GWP West Africa to support the involvement of young people in the implementation of innovative solutions for adapting to the adverse consequences of climate change.