Vientiane, 22 October 2018 -- A pre Steering Commitee Meeting was held in the Mekong River Commission (MRC) Secretariat on 22 October 2018 to discuss several important agenda for the upcoming event in the Q4. Involving 13 participants that represent the Country Water Partnership's Chair, GWP SEA Chairman and the Secretariat, as well as GWPO representatives, this event was back to back with the Regional Shared Vision Planning & Collaborative Modelling Training and Workshop which also held in Vientiane, Lao PDR.

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.

Recent droughts and floods in Southern Africa region have served as a reminder that a silo approach to planning and investing in water security is no longer suitable due to changing climate and pressure on natural resources.

GWP’s “Follow-the-Sun” Network Meeting concluded, after 29 hours, on Friday 28 September. The meeting, which was held in 15 consecutive multi-point video conference sessions over two days, engaged over 400 Partners across the world, in nearly 50 countries. The main aim was to seek insight for GWP’s Strategy development, in addition to statutory tasks. “We have a powerful story”, said GWP Executive Secretary Monika Weber-Fahr in her concluding remarks.

Tanzania’s Ministry of Water and Irrigation (MoWI) has appointed Global Water Partnership Tanzania to a National Public Private Partnership (PPP) Task Force whose mandate is to deliver a national action plan for promoting and realizing an enhanced engagement of the private sector in the larger water sector. Submission and presentation of the action plan will be before end of November 2018.

From 25 to 26 August 2018, the global meeting of the Advisory Committee and the Management Committee of the Integrated Drought Management Programme (IDMP) took place at the GWP offices in Stockholm.

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.

The Global Water Partnership-Caribbean (GWP-C) is pleased to announce the appointment of Ms. Simone Lewis, as its new Regional Coordinator. Ms. Lewis who is from Grenada, will assume office on October 1st, 2018.

Today (Thursday, September 27th, 2018), the Global Water Partnership-Caribbean (GWP-C) joins the GWP Network in its first-ever “Follow-the-Sun” GWP Network Meeting. Partners from 46 countries will go LIVE from all corners of the world.