World Water Day is an annual observance day on 22 March to highlight the importance of the world’s water resources. For GWP, this an important day to be an 'ambassador for water' and the network participates in celebrations around the world in various ways. Here are some of the highlights of 2018.

The Orange-Senqu River Basin is a transboundary water resource shared by Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa, managed by the Orange–Senqu River Commission (ORASECOM) - a GWP Southern Africa Partner. The Commission was established in 2000 and in this interview, Executive Secretary Lenka Thamae describes the partnership and issues at hand.

GWP recognises the importance of the private sector, a key stakeholder, in delivering the water-related development agenda. The integrated water resources management approach can add value to existing corporate stewardship initiatives and leverage the strengths and perspectives of the private sector to improve water management and governance.

In the face of profound global water challenges, on World Water Day 2018 five global multi-stakeholder partnerships representing business, governments, intergovernmental organisations, academia, and civil society organisations announced a new collaboration effort designed to accelerate progress toward ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation around the world. (Full statement at right.)

On 20 March 2018, during the 8th World Water Forum, GWP launched a campaign to speed up the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goal on water, SDG 6.

On World Water Day (22 March 2018), during the World Water Forum 8 in Brasilia, a beta version of the Youth for Water & Climate #YWC digital platform was launched.

The UN theme of this year’s International Women’s Day (IWD 2018) relates to gender equality and activism, building on global movements such as #metoo and #TimeIsNow. For the water community we translated this to “Time is now for equality in water access and management!” and followed it up by asking women in the GWP network “How can activism empower women in the water sector?” These issues were also raised in a Facebook Live session on 8 March together with GWP Partner Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI).

The Global Water Partnership (GWP) Steering Committee announced the appointment of Dr. Monika Weber-Fahr as GWP Executive Secretary, effective May 7, 2018. Weber-Fahr joins GWP after 20-plus years in the development field, with diverse experiences in creating and sharing knowledge across global networks and communities. Weber-Fahr succeeds Rudolph Cleveringa who is retiring.

The GWP network delivers results and this month we launch an online, interactive map showing how we have contributed to improving water resources management over the years. You can use several filters to see the results according to different categories.

GWP Central America has published two case studies on women in water management, as part of the implementation of GWP´s Gender Strategy. The studies are available in Spanish.