Global Water Partnership Organization at the 2023 UN Water Conference
Some important highlights from the participation of the Global Water Partnership Organization (GWPO) at the conference can be read at the following link.
The conference was also used as a place to launch The MSP Sourcebook - A Guide for Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships in Water Management. The book was written with the book sprint method, engaged GWP PAN-Asia Networks consisting of Southeast Asia (GWP-SEA), South Asia (GWP-SAS) and Central Asia and Caucasus (GWP CACENA) through a workshop dated back to 20-22 June 2022 in Jakarta - Indonesia. GWP-SEA’s Knowledge Management and Communication Mr Adhitya Wirayasa, GWP-SEA’s Deputy Regional Coordinator Louise Desrainy, GWP-SEA’s IWRM Specialist Ms Megan Knight, GWP Malaysia Mr Liam We Lin, GWP Indonesia Mr Leonardo Ibnu Said, GWP Viet Nam Ms Le Thi Kim Cuc, GWP Philippines Mr Nathan Lim Tambobong were among the workshop participants who involve in writing the book.
The Water Action Agenda was also launched as a platform to register each organization's initiative. GWPO and Regional Country Water Partnership commitments were submitted to the #WaterActionAgenda platform and are highlighted through the following link. GWP-SEA commitment for the Water Action Agenda is the Integrated Water Security Open Program (Open Program), that can be learned by checking the following link and this link.
GWP-SEA at the 2023 UN Water Conference
1. Pathway Forward: Water-Resilient, Sustainable, and Inclusive in Asia and the Pacific
The regional office of Southeast Asia participated in the side event. GWP-SEA participation in the side event was through the Asia-Pacific Water Forum (APWF) title “Pathway Forward: Water-resilient, Sustainable, and Inclusive in Asia and the Pacific”. The session started with an opening remark from the Major of Kumamoto City Mr Kazufumi Ohnishi. Kumamoto City in Japan hosted the 4th Asia-Pacific Water Summit in April 2022. In his speech, he explained “Water resources are necessary for sustainable development and increasing the quality of life, but it can also be an enormous threat to human safety in the form of increasing pollution from explosive population growth, rapid economic development and increasing scale of damage from floods and other disasters due to global warming.” The fruit of the Summit was Kumamoto Declaration which on the latter session will be shared to the UN Water Conference audiences.
GWP-SEA was represented by Yumiko Yasuda, the Senior Network Officer for Asia, during the panel discussion focused on the improvement, replication and scaling-up of initiatives that had been discussed during the showcase presentations session. She said that “We often talk about cooperation, but the fact is that we don’t have a mechanism to know what’s going on, who’s doing what”. She added that “We can identify the major player at the global level; However, when it comes to the local level, there are so many different organizations doing so many things that really can contribute; And sometimes this actor is not coming from the water sector which we have failed to identify”. She said, “GWP as a multi-stakeholder platform has a capacity at the global, regional and national levels to bring different partners and have a dialogue. So whenever anyone wants to implement things on the ground and want to engage different sectors, please use our platform (Country Water Partnerships) so we can deal with the issue in an integrated manner”. During this session, she also introduced the Integrated Water Security Open Program as a platform, developed by GWP-SEA. The platform can be used by any organization to register all of their actions on the ground and make that information available for everyone to see. Ms Yumiko said, "This is great news for many partners who wants to intervene in a particular area". For those who missed the event, the recorded session can be seen at the following link: https://media.un.org/en/asset/k1u/k1uuethi4o
The event flyer: UN-Water-Conference-APWF-Side-event-Flyer.pdf (waterforum.jp)
2. Co-Creation: The New Water Governance Paradigm
GWP-SEA participated as one of the virtual events as one of the speakers. The virtual event co-hosted by Myanmar Water Academy (a representative from GWP Myanmar), ecocivilisation, and Women for Water Partnership through the event called “Co-Creation: The New Water Governance Paradigm” which was held on 24 March 2023.
Mr Fany, GWP-SEA’s Regional Coordinator took part as one of the panellists and shared the topic Integrated Water Security Open Program (Open Program). His three (3) key messages were:
- Water governance is not something abstract. We need to be willing to unpack it and identify all the gaps/challenges and the solutions to ensure effective, efficient, and coherent water governance is in place.
- Effective, efficient, and coherent water governance requires an integrated approach to ensure coherency among sub-water governance themes (water for environment, water for people, water for economy and development activities, and water-related Disasters Risk Reduction). We need to have a clear standard of effective, efficient, and coherent water governance.
- Knowing who is doing what, where, when and how can help us to inform how each theme regulates water, implement their programs and projects, and monitor the impact on the water cycle. The Integrated Water Security Open program can help to provide this critical information to enable us to move forward.
The recorded session can be seen through the following link: Co-creation: The New Water Governance Paradigm - YouTube