At a separate meeting of the Expert Group Meeting (EGM) on Monitoring of Investment and Results (MIR) in the Water Sector in Asia and the Pacific, GWP Southeast Asia called on ASEAN leaders to ensure effective water governance by developing an integrated and comprehensive ASEAN Water Security Roadmap for the 21st century. The statement is available here.
The ADB conference theme, “Water: Crisis and Choices”, was a platform to inform the ADB’s next 10-year funding cycle in water. More than 600 people from 53 countries attended.
The GWP delegation included Patron Margaret Catley Carlson, Executive Secretary Dr Ania Grobicki, Technical Committee members Patricia Wouters and Wouter Arriens, GWP Ambassador Suresh Prabhu, Senior Advisor Torkil Jonch Clausen, Steering Committee members Kenzo Hiroki and Ramon Alikpala, the GWP SEA Chair Dr Le Van Minh, all GWP SEA Steering Committee members, Chair of GWP South Asia Sadar Tariq, and Senior Network Officer for Southeast Asia and South Asia, Dr Mercy Dikito-Wachtmeister.
Patricia Wouters organised and co-chaired the session on Water and Governance with six speakers examining governance in its various streams (public, private, substantive, procedural) together with Suresh Prabhu. Dr Grobicki and Dr Wouters were also invited by the ADB to be panelists in a session on ADB partners.
GWP Executive Secretary made a presentation in the session on “Partnerships for IWRM", stressing that “water for nature” and “water for people” are not mutually exclusive, and that women play a major role in finding the solutions. Partnerships are expected to play a significantly larger and sustainable role as ADB seeks to address water issues over the next coming decade.
Presentations and more information about Margaret Catley-Carlson are available on the ADB website.
The GWP delegation participated in the Expert Group Meeting (EGM) on Monitoring of Investment and Results (MIR) in the Water Sector in Asia and the Pacific, organised by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific in collaboration with GWP Philippines GWP Southeast Asia, FAO, ICHARM, UNESCO, IUCN and ADB.
The objective was to follow up on the November 2007 Asia Pacific Water Summit which identified “Monitoring of Investment and Results” as one of the five Key Results Areas for which information needs to be collected. The meeting decided that UNESCAP and GWP SEA will cooperate on a joint dialogue to gather local data to inform the ASEAN leaders summit.
GWP Southeast Asia released a statement to ASEAN leaders requesting them to ensure effective water governance by initiating the development of an integrated and comprehensive ASEAN Water Security Roadmap for the 21st century and to oversee the implementation of regional and country action plans. The statement concluded that GWP-SEA is ready to contribute to the formulation of the regional water security roadmap which includes a 10-year assessment of integrated water resources management plans in the countries. In subsequent discussion with ADB, it was agreed that this work would also feed into the ADB country water security assessments that will be carried out in 2011.