News and Activities

Aimed at integrating climate change considerations in water and soil conservation planning in Tunisia, the Global Water Partnership – Mediterranean (GWP-Med) has established, in the framework of its WACDEP Programme (Water, Climate and Development Programme), a very beneficial collaboration with the Department for Planning and Conservation of Agricultural Lands at the Tunisian Ministry of Agriculture and the Regional Department for Agriculture in Bizerte, in Tunisia’s North.

Some 40 key stakeholders from the government; private companies and banks; research institutes and Academia; media as well as the Civil Society discussed and contributed to the final draft of the Report ‘Governance in Palestine: Sector Reform to include Private Sector Participation’, during the Third Consultation Workshop of the Palestinian Water Policy Dialogue. The workshop was organised by the Global Water Partnership – Mediterranean (GWP-Med), within the Union for the Mediterranean project Governance & Financing for the Mediterranean Water Sector and under the patronage of H.E. Mazen Ghuneim, Chairman of the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA), in Ramallah, on 16 June 2015.

The Second Consultation Workshop of the Palestinian Water Policy Dialogue, within the Union for the Mediterranean project Governance & Financing for the Mediterranean Water Sector, was organised under the patronage of H.E. Mazen Ghuneim, Minister and Chairman of the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA), by the Global Water Partnership – Mediterranean (GWP-Med) in Ramallah, on 6 May 2015.

Thirty participants from 5 Middle East & Nortnern Africa (MENA) countries - Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Tunisia - gathered in Tunisia, on 8-19 February 2015, in a course held in the framework of the 4-year MENA Integrated Sustainable Coastal Development Training Programme (MENA ISCD), financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and jointly implemented by NIRAS Natura AB and the Global Water Partnership – Mediterranean (GWP-Med).

Lebanon and Jordan are exploring the possibility of joining the UNECE Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (Water Convention). To assist the two countries in this process, UNECE and the Global Water Partnership - Mediterranean (GWP-Med), with financial support provided by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), have organised national workshops to increase awareness and understanding of relevant stakeholders of the different legal and institutional frameworks for cooperation on shared waters resources, the specificities of the UNECE Water Convention, in comparison to the UN Watercourses Convention, as well as the complementarity of the two agreements.

Α Regional Roundtable & a Working Meeting on “Water, Food, Energy and Environment Nexus in South East Europe” were organized by the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC), Global Water Partnership - Mediterranean (GWP-Med) and Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC), in cooperation with the German Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB), Global Environment Facility (GEF) International Waters: Learning Exchange and Resources Network (IW:LEARN) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).

"Delivering Solutions"

The 3^rd workshop of the Capacity Building Programme “The Economics of Adaptation, Water Security and Climate Resilient Development” took place in the framework of the Water, Climate, Development Program for Africa (WACDEP), in Hammamet, Tunisia, on December 22-25, 2014. The Programme is composed of a series of five workshop trainings that are following the framework cycle developed under WACDEP for water security and climate resilience.

 

The “Water Integrity Capacity Building Programme for the MENA Region” was officially labelled under the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) framework, during the Senior Officials of the Member Countries’ Meeting on December 4, 2014 at the headquarters of the UfM Secretariat, in Barcelona.

A training workshop was organized in Tunis, in the framework of the Water, Climate, Development Program for Africa (WACDEP), on 20-23 October; the second one out of a series of five training workshops composing the capacity building program “The Economics of Adaptation, Water Security and Climate Resilient Development”. This series of workshops follows the Framework cycle developed under WACDEP for water security and climate resilience.

The first consultation workshop of the Water Policy Dialogue in Palestine, within the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) labelled project Governance & Financing for the Mediterranean Water Sector was held in close cooperation with the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA), on 13 November 2014, in Ramallah. With more than 40 key stakeholders from the government; private companies and banks; research institutes and Academia; media as well as the Civil Society actively participating, the workshop marked the official launch of the Policy Dialogue to be conducted by GWP-Med within the period 2014-2015.