Lao Water Partnership is a network of public and private sectors that was set up in 2003, it was a member of Global Water Partnership. Lao Water Partnership secretariat is hosted by Department of Water Resources (DWR). In 2017, based on the requirement of the GWPO on the accreditation of GWP’s network around the world, Lao Water Partnership is one of the country partnerships that was recommended to improve its accreditation status. Accordingly, Lao Water Partnership organized its General Assembly to consult with its partner on the step to improve their accreditation status.
The meeting was organized on 1 November 2018 at the Nakhonsap Hotel and chaired by Dr. Inthavy AKKHARATH, Chair of Lao Water Partnership, and Director General of the Department of Water Resources, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE). The meeting was organized by applying of the participatory approach to brainstorm the opinions from the members regarding to the members status and the drafted statute of Lao Water Partnership.
There were 25 participants from different sectors participated in this meeting including representatives from public. These participants were: Department of Forestry, Department of Natural Resources and Environment Monitoring, Department of Water Supply, Provincial of Natural Resources and Environment Vientiane Capital, Natural Resources and Environment Institute, Department of Environmental Quality Promotion, Department of Climate Change Management, University and private sectors: Nam Ngum Dam 1, Eclectricite Du Laos. Among the participants representative from MRC and IUCN also attended the meeting.
The meeting was conducted by presenting the background and draft statute of Lao Water partnership, which was established in 2003, and its achievements until now. After that, the session was open for all participants to share their opinions on how Lao Water Partnership will work and coordinate. The statute of Lao Water Partnership will serve as a reference tool for working procedures. At the end of the meeting, the participants had agreed on the Steering Committee and Membership, Status of Lao Water Partnership, and way forward. Based on this General Assembly result, it is expected that Lao PDR Water Partnership will get accreditation from GWPO and will be fully acknowledged as GWP network in Lao PDR by February 2019. AW
