The first workshop took place in Nouakchott- Mauritania on April 26th, 2018 and gathered together about 30 Mauritanian youth committed to improve the situation of water resources management in Mauritania. The first workshop was intended to familiarize the participants with the concepts of water security and climate change as well as their delineation in the Mauritanian context. Furthermore, the workshop initiated the identification of project ideas to be promoted by youth and that will be further refined during the next workshops. The objective is to assist the youth NGOs on the formulation of project proposals ready for fundraising.
The opening of the workshop was ensured by M. Assane Gaye the National Centre of Water Resources in Mauritania, Dr. Sarra Touzi from GWP-Med and Ms. Tabara Chanel from AISER.
The first sessions was dedicated to initiate the young participants to the water resources management in a context of climate change at the international level and more particularly in Mauritania as well as to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The workshop was also an opportunity to share successful experience from neighboring countries. For this purpose, M. Hie Bachenté, CWP Burkina Faso, presented the local sustainable development project set up and implemented by youth in Benin, Togo and Burkina Faso aiming to contribute to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the impacts of climate change in a vulnerable francophone countries.
The afternoon was devoted to the groups work to identify, based on the presentations and discussions of previous sessions, major local issues related to water security in Mauritania and how youth can address them. A list of activitiesthat can be promoted by youth were discussed, these include more particularly awareness and capacity-building activities targeting children and youth on water management, introduction of innovative technologies in agricultural activities to optimize irrigation and the use of fertilizers, awareness raising among the local population on the importance of the latrines whether rehabilitation or building new ones, and advocacy activities to improve the supply of drinking water and sanitation.
Finally, The youth for water and climate platform www.youthwaterclimate.org was presented with particular focus on the benefits offered by the platform for youth who want to implement projects / activities related to water security and in particular to seek technical and financial assistance.
The identified activities will be further refined during the coming workshops and young people will be equipped with the necessary knowledge in relation to technologies, approaches, and devices to solve the identified problems in an innovative, sustainable and integrated way and be able to formulate concrete project proposals during the final workshop.