The Budget and Finance Committee is an ad hoc committee set up by the Steering Committee to review documents including work plans, budgets and progress and financial reports to give its opinion on the level of implementation GWP West Africa budgets.
Pr. Abel AFOUDA visited the secretariat from 21 to 26 March 2016. He discussed with the personnel all issues from traditional running ones to project technical and planning issues.
The CWP Niger has coordinated with the consultants to send data in the framework of the Mékrou Project and tackling some burning issues in relation with data collection in the country.
A scanned version of the Framework Agreement signed on December 21, 2015 by Benin, Burkina and Niger was transmitted to all members of the Advisory Committee, to the nine (9) Ministers related to NBA through the National Focal Structures of NBA, as well to the Regional Coordination of users of the natural resources of the Niger basin (CRU-ABN).
The elaboration of the study on the "Identification of development priorities in the Mékrou transboundary basin" in each country (Benin, Burkina and Niger) with workshops for the restitution and validation has been delayed because of some practical issues. The contracts were signed with some delay with each consultants and some national issues linked to the political and social situation couldn’t allow work to go on correctly.
The Ghana Country Water Partnership (CWP-Ghana), in collaboration with the Federation of Environmental Journalists (FEJ) of the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) organised a “Learn and Share” Seminar under the theme “Dynamics of Environmental Reporting”. The seminar was held on 10th March, 2016 at GIJ Seminar Room.
A regional water youth network was created by participants to the recent Youth for Water Conference organised by GWP Central America, Movimiento de Jóvenes por el Agua (Youth Movement for Water, MOJA) and La Ruta del Clima (The Climate Route) and supported by GWP South America, UNICEF-Nicaragua, Reforestamos Mexico, and IUCN.
Dr. Nicole Bernex is a Professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and a Member of the GWP Technical Committee. She has been active in the GWP network for many years, the past ten of them through GWP Peru. When asked to talk about a topic close to her heart, Dr. Bernex chooses a project that GWP has been running successfully in Peru for the past two years, the Santa Eulalia Water, Climate and Development Programme.
In the 2015accounts audit report, the auditor's conclusion was the following: "We believe that the financial report of the Regional Water Partnership for West Africa (GWP/WA) and the CWPs (Burkina and Ghana) accurately reflect the statement and financial position of the Regional Water Partnership for West Africa and the CWPs (Burkina and Ghana) as of 31st December 2015, consistently with the GWP financial procedures.”
The way forward in 2016 is to strive to implement all partially implemented recommendations including those made in 2014 and those made as of 31st December, 2015. It should be noted that almost all new recommendations dating from 31st December 2015 have already been implemented prior to the finalization of the audit report in 2015 in Burkina Faso and for the region.
Ivory Coast has celebrated World Water Day 2016 and the second edition of the National Water Week from March 22 to 24. The topic of celebration was inspired from the global theme: "Ivory Coast, emerging in 2020: what contributions of the water sector to creating jobs and wealth? »