Philippines Water Partnership successfully organized a session in a summit entitled “Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM): Tracking Implementation in the Re-gional, National and Local Level” on 21-24 November 2018 in Mandaue City - Cebu, Philippines. The aim of the session was to articulate various experiences from experts on how IWRM complement river management initiatives.
During the presentation, various principles on how IWRM operational framework affects our rivers and the communities relying on these resources was described, among others: social equity, economic efficiency and ecological sustainability. In addition, the speakers highlighted experiences and explained how these principles will be transformed into concrete action.
In a session that organized by Philippines Water Partner-ship, many lessons learned on the IWRM implementation were presented by different country. For instant, in the Philippines, the key message is to recognize the role of LGUs in WRM / IWRM implementation as local is a local concern, thus the role of LGUs is critical and to promote the practice of IWRM as well as water technology include the R & D to address the challenges. In Indonesia, the implementation of IWRM challenged by the void in regulation since the revocation of the former water resources law. The recent development of multi stakeholders position paper on the Water Law Draft then followed by acceptance by the parliament has successfully shown the importance of employing a multi-sectoral approach and collaboration. Lastly, the impact of monsoon and climate change to an active delta country setting like Bangladesh has shown the importance of basin wide approach to address water management challenges. AW
