The May 2020 Steering Committee meeting comes at a crucial time for Global Water Partnership in West Africa, facing not only the global crisis of COVID-19, but also and more worryingly the challenge of insecurity linked to terrorism in the region. Burkina Faso is part of the countries mostly affected by the terrorism in the Sahel. This situation has an increasingly perceptible negative impact on the activities of GWP-WA, which headquartered in Ouagadougou. The situation has been the subject of various exchanges with GWP-O, giving rise to different scenarios which discussed during the SC meeting.
The SC has also assessed the development of the Covid-19 pandemic in West African countries, and its implications on the Regional Secretariat operationality and on the implementation of GWP-WA 2020 activities. The members of the SC have examined and approved the various documents submitted to them and given guidelines for good governance. They have assessed the overall context in which the GWP-WA operates, and provided scenarios and guidelines to ensure the smooth running of the network.
The 2020-2022 work program and the 2020 budgeted work plan as well as GWP-WA 2019 progress and financial reports have approved.
The SC members have decided to deliver a vote of thanks to Aboubacar AWAISS who retired after having served GWP at various levels as TEC member, Global Steering Committee and regional Steering Committee member as the representative of IUCN.