World Water Day is an important milestone to raise the awareness of water security globally. The theme of World Water Day 2021 is valuing water. The value of water is greater than its price – water has enormous and complex value for our households, food, culture, health, education, economics and the integrity of our natural environment. Without a comprehensive understanding of water’s true, multidimensional value, it will be challenging to safeguard this critical resource for the benefit of people, environment, and economic development. The Indonesia Water Coalition (IWC) that officially established through the charter signing ceremony on the 29 January 2021 sees World Water Day as an important milestone to achieve water security in Indonesia, which aligns with its vision. Since its establishment in January 2021, the coalition has been focusing on initiating multi-stakeholder collaboration to tackle the growing water challenges jointly. To leverage best practices from each company and organization, we are inviting the coalition’s founding members to share their commitments, achievements, and future-plans to the public via online sharing sessions between 22-31 March 2021. As one of the founding members, Fany Wedahuditama, Regional Coordinator for Global Water Partnership Southeast Asia (GWP-SEA) shared these discussion topic on the 29 March 2021.

The Masungi Georeserve was announced winners of the Water ChangeMaker Awards in a ceremony at the Climate Adaptation Summit on 25 January. Their project is about restoring forgotten watersheds through youth-led movements. In a Facebook Live session on 4 March, Billie Dumaliang, representing the winning team, encouraged youth to be brave and creative, and to work together when tackling their climate challenges.

By the end of 2018, GWP-SEA and the partners in Indonesia has successfully established a stepping stone to better-delivering water management through the formulation of a position paper on the inclusion of community-based water and sanitation program. Most of the recommendation was adopted by the new Water Bill that was enacted in 2019. Following this success, in 2020 GWP-SEA has further its collaboration with the private sectors in Indonesia to become one of the founding members of the Indonesia Water Coalition. To formalize the collaboration the charter signing ceremony was held.

Cambodia Water Partnership (CambodiaWP) collaborated with the partners to develop a sound Green Climate Fund (GCF) application. The project proposal was the continuation of the Water, Climate, and Development Programme (WACDEP) started in 2018 aiming at the implementation of IWRM under the medium and long-term flood risks management planning in the Central Floodplain (CFP) of Cambodia.

In 2020, Global Water Partnership (GWP) in collaboration with The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as the custodian agency, which coordinates reporting on SDG 6.5.1 indicator, together with UNEP-DHI Centre and Cap-Net, operates the SDG 6 IWRM Support Programme, to support 60 countries in implementing the survey. For the PAN Asia region, the reports have successfully submitted and it is now the time to find out the lesson learned behind the process.

The 2020 GWP Network Meeting concluded on 22 October, with over 900 GWP Partners signed up for the virtual event and others watching the Facebook Live feed (not covered the EURASIA ses-sion). The overall theme was ‘Bringing the Change’ in the context of the GWP 2020-2025 Strategy and as the world faces a pandem-ic. The session covers the global plenary session (Opening and closing) and 3 continental sessions; Latin America and Caribbean, EURASIA, as well as Africa and the Mediterranean.

On 7 October, GWP Chair Howard Bamsey was the keynote speaker in the second of a series of webinars organized by the Asia-Pacific Water Forum (APWF) on the road towards the 4th Asia-Pacific Water Summit in 2022. He spoke to the topic of "Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and Investors: More Risks, More Opportunities through better Governance." His speech focused on how the world can deal with the potentially catastrophic risks of climate change by changing the pattern of investment in the global economy, towards climate-friendly activities.

The Asia Region Online Workshop Supporting the Monitoring and Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicator 6.5.2 on Transboundary Water Cooperation was successfully held virtually on 17 September 2020. GWP is one of the partners behind the workshop along with UN-ESCAP, UNESCO-IHP, and UNECE.

The Water ChangeMaker Awards was launched during the World Water Week, 22nd March 2020. The submission of an application was opened from 6 April and last until 14 June 2020, after extend-ed for one week. The award aims to make visible the teams and organizations that shape water decisions that build climate resili-ence – and to create and support a community of ChangeMakers who contribute and learn from each other in shaping the lessons learned about how to make positive change happen. The initiative is designed to make sure that everybody will benefit from oppor-tunities to Connect, Collaborate, and to Celebrate.