The 9th GWP-WA Assembly of Partners is held three months after the adoption of the GWP New 2020-2025 Strategy by the policy and decision-making bodies of the network and its official launch in July 2019 in New York.
Mobilizing for a world in which water security is ensured for all needs
This new Strategy promotes agility and urgency. Its objective is to provide guidance on how the GWP Network will work from 2020 to 2025. This Strategy takes into account the entire network with its different levels of operationality. Guidance is provided to Country and Regional Water Partnerships - outlining consistent thematic priorities and codifying GWP's distinctive approach to delivering change while enabling autonomy and innovation. " The Strategy also offers insights to our Network, laying out areas of action and impact we can collectively pursue" state GWP network leaders in the Strategy's executive statement.
The new GWP Strategy underlines that " the global water crisis urgently needs more attention and coordinated action. Sound and integrated water resources management is needed more than ever”. In this Strategy, GWP affirms its willingness to bring all voices around the table, including those outside the “water box”, to make their voices heard on issues of sustainable water resources management. And the ambition is even clearer when the document insists on GWP’s determination to "significantly advance the water-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 60 countries and 20 transboundary basins with a combined population of over 4 billion people".
The adoption of the new GWP Strategy coincides with the 20th anniversary of the beginning of GWP's work in West Africa in 1999. Twenty years of action have enabled GWP to position itself as a strategic partner with the major stakeholders in the water sector in the sub-region. It has also been 20 years of learning and drawing useful lessons for the future.
Like all the components of GWP, namely the Secretariat, the regions and the Country Water Partnerships (CWPs), GWP-WA shall commit and adjust its approach to respond to the needs and address challenges of the region considering the three pillars that constitute the foundation of the new Strategy, namely MOBILIZE, ACT and LEARN.
"This new Strategy of the network focuses on 3 thematic priorities that must lead to water security for all:
- Water solutions for SDGs
- Climate resilience for development
- Transboundary waters cooperation.
The implementation of the GWP Strategy 2020-2025 will be based on the mobilization of key actors and coordination of actions at country and regional levels... The new Strategy 2020-2025 is therefore a guidance document for regional and country water partnerships, which defines thematic priorities and codifies approaches to action while allowing autonomy and innovation at different levels of intervention" said the GWP-WA Chair, Prof. Amadou Hama MAIGA.
"I have read all the document and I would like to congratulate GWP for the high quality of the Strategy. It is a well written document and the ideas are coherent enough" said Dr. Boubacar BARRY, Chair of the GWP-WA Technical Committee.
Ms Theodora ADOMAKO-ADJEI, from the Ministry of Water of Ghana, member of the GWP-WA Steering Committee said that, "the new Strategy is well elaborated and I urge GWP to develop relevant messages to accompany the Strategy Document in order to facilitate the donor approach for funds mobilization leading to its effective implementation".
The English version of the Strategy document is now available to all on free download on the GWP website.